


Heart and Soul

by Silversheath



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Love Live characters in HDM AU, Politics, Witches, daemon AU, longfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-08 11:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4303884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silversheath/pseuds/Silversheath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your soul walks beside you, how long does it take to give up your heart?</p><p>Ayase Eli considers this sentence nonsense. Born to duty, greatness, and government, she takes her destiny seriously. After her daemon has settled into a fox, she knows she's ready to step forward and claim her rightful place in the ranks of the Magisterium. But the policy her class makes becomes complicated when she meets the kind of people whose lives she can wreck with one wrong choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Eli thinks it might be time to make for a hasty exit when Hoshizora Rin bursts through the double French doors, her vermillion hair flopping unbrushed to one side and arms spread wide to hug the nearest unlucky recipient who may or may not be the hostess. A sleek black cat daemon skitters around her ankles, tapered tail flying high. Seeing that Rin’s enthusiastic disregard for personal space hasn’t much changed in the last ten years, Eli slides smoothly sideways through the crowd of cocktail dresses and pressed suits, avoiding both paws and toes, and Thrall winds his way behind her.

She’s not doing a great job of avoiding childhood acquaintances tonight, though – Eli’s only partway through the ballroom, heels clacking like miniature hammers against the burnished marble floor, noise barely hidden by the subtle plucking of the orchestra behind her, warm anabaric light shining off Thrall’s fur, when she nearly runs headlong into Nishikino Maki. Maki has a champagne flute in one hand – is she already old enough to drink? Eli is awfully shocked for a moment, the feeling like swallowing a cherry pit or seeing her sister’s daemon move too far away from the human – and the other hand’s fingers curled lightly in the intricate fur of a great leopard seated on its haunches. She’s chatting with another girl, a woman with a sweet heart-shaped face and a white dress paired with a glinting pearl necklace. There’s a ram daemon with coiled horns politely examining a gold-trimmed painting just behind them both. Eli recognizes she cannot flee from everyone, and steps forward, Thrall’s tail brushing her bare legs as she swallows her nerves, her heartbeat at her side.

“Ayase Eli,” says the girl with the ram daemon in a voice that is far too grateful and sweet, like she’s using the opportunity to thank Eli for simply existing. Eli forces a smile and extends a hand, but the girl moves closer and hugs her, thin arms gripping with a surprising strength and nostalgia. Nishikino Maki takes the handshake though, her dark eyes half-narrowed. Thrall, his silly, oversized fox ears cocked at an angle that is somehow respectful, touches noses with Maki’s gigantically intimidating leopard daemon, and Eli feels the awkwardness diminish slightly.

“Congratulations, Kotori,” says Eli, “One day, we’re racing through the slum streets with the gutter rats, the next we’re being inducted into things like the Ministry of Education,” slipping into an informal tone as best she can. Immediately she feels horrendously inappropriate, as though she’s slipped out of her dress and begun the steps to the latest lower-class dance craze. But neither Kotori nor Maki’s daemons look ruffled, so Eli supposes she has not committed a horrible _faux pas_ and informally embarrassed herself out of her birthright as heir to the Board of Government. Thrall nips her shin, which means _focus_ , and Eli hurriedly reapplies herself to the small talk that always happens at these sorts of ridiculous gatherings.

“Thank you, Eli.” Kotori has a smile brighter than the flickering anabaric lights. “I’m ever so grateful you were able to attend my celebration as representative for the Ayase family. It means a lot to me!”

“We _did_ waste a lot of our childhood together,” drawls Maki in a way that just screams _money_ , somehow, and her daemon thrashes his tail, just once. A few partygoers tiptoe around the leopard and ram, and Eli thanks the stars that her soul settled in the form of a Sumerian Fox. Much easier to work with. Thrall puts his paws on her legs and moves his whiskers back, as if to say he agrees.

“What are you new responsibilities in the office?” Eli asks, to keep the conversation moving, and snags an elegant crystal goblet of an electric blue liquid from a passing waitstaff. Hm. Tastes like moonlight and mint. Thrall sneezes.

Kotori sounds like she’s reading from the pamphlet the Magisterium prints and sends monthly. “I have just been placed in an office that overs national high school curriculum and promotes egalitarian learning options for students with disabilities.”

“Lofty,” says Maki, and looks at her nails.

“That’s… great!” Eli replies, and downs half of her drink. “That sounds perfect for you.” Never mind that Kotori’s been born into the position, or even poised to make Board member through her family’s connection. Kotori will do well in that office because the girl has something kind in her soul, something as soft and fine as her daemon’s wooly back, and daemons do not lie.

Maki is connected to the highest of the high in the Ministry of Health and Welfare. She’s changed a lot in the last few years. Eli hasn’t seen her since her daemon settled.

Eli gives her old friend a side-eye, seeing a colder, sleeker Maki than the one that decorates her memories with laughter and embarrassed flushes. Eli sees a grown woman more inclined to discussing politics within the Magisterium and medical advances than their childhood. Does she remember sloughing together through the clinging mud by the city streets?

There’s not much time to process the changes. Hoshizora Rin appears in the grand archway to the ballroom behind Maki and starts forward towards their little cluster of young women at once, heeled combat boots striking the floor with a powerful air of _girth_ that pushes the crowd along before her almost imperceptibly, parting couples and daemons with alacrity.

Rin’s hardly 155 cm though, so when she arrives with her cat daemon dashing along, she looks like a ten-year-old besides the upperclassmen. Her striking eyes tell of her confidence, though, despite her lithe little frame – Hoshizora Rin stands to inherit the Otonokizaka Corp, that monopoly that manages financials for half the country. “Old friends here tonight,” she crows, and shuffles her suit jacket a little awkwardly. “It’s been quite a while.”

“Almost ten years,” says Kotori softly. Her daemon shifts on his hooves and exhales loudly.

“What _have_ you fools been up to all this time?” demands Rin excitedly, hands wringing together. She can’t stay _still_ , but it contributes to her aura of energy.

“Oh, please,” says Maki. “Kotori and Eli are only twenty-two. Rin, we’re only two years younger. We’re still in the prime of our youth, finally stepping forward to take our destinies.” Her hand swirls her champagne flute. Eli has decided Maki isn’t old enough to drink, but who would stop the elegant young heiress? “Nothing has possibly happened since we last saw each other, except that we grew up and stopped smearing mud on our faces and started using creams.”

“Destiny,” says Eli, rolling the word around her tongue and surprising herself. The group glances at her, even everybody’s daemons. That’s embarrassing. Thrall shakes his ears and bares his teeth, telling the other girls that Eli’s soul, at least, will not be humiliated. The other daemons look away.

”Did we even go to one another's settling parties?” Rin asks softly.

Eli thinks this over. Thrall settled when she was twelve. She remembers Kotori’s Abraxas settled not long after that. Was there a party? She just remembers her mother buying her a new diamond earring set in congratulations; remembers her sister crying about how pretty Thrall was.

Kotori sidesteps the question and coaxes Maki into discussing the latest experiments the Ministry of Health has conducting. Eli is a little offended that Kotori would raise this subject – everyone knows the Nishikinos on the Board of Health directly opposed the Ayases on the Governing Board about using live criminals and daemons for the health experiments, but Maki explains the discoveries anyway. Apparently her people have found that it’s possible to vivisect daemons without killing the humans, using a manganese-titanium alloy blade – daemons don’t have organs, obviously, but inside their physical forms are glittering particles that the Magisterium has enthusiastically dubbed Dust and funds research on them almost endlessly…

“What about your music, though?” Eli interrupts, and Kotori goes red around the ears when she realizes her mistake. It’s true that Eli has only mentioned this in a quest to redirect the conversation, but she hadn’t guessed how Maki would halt midway through a rather gruesome explanation of daemon cutting.

“It’s… almost nonexistent,” Maki admits, and seems to disturb herself with how much saying the words aloud hurts. She makes a tiny frown to herself, and her daemon leans against her leg and hums comfortingly. He has a deeper voice than Eli would expect – she jumps like she’s received a tiny sting, but nobody’s looking at her – “I get some time every weekend to play the piano, but since my medical lessons have taken over so much of my day, I don’t – I haven’t done much.”

Rin’s picked up her daemon who’s been whispering in her ear, and now she perks up when she hears Maki being accosted about her old passions. “You were so _good_ though, Maki! You could play sweet enough that your heart could fall out,” she sighs.

“What about you, though,” Maki shoots back. “Surely your parents haven’t allowed you to continue running amok?”

“Not amok,” says Rin, and it takes more than that to offend her dandelion gaze. “Competitive running is out of the question, obviously, when they tell me there’s more of a chance that some angry customer stinted on a business deal will put a bullet in my back, but I still do laps around the gym at my summer home. You, Kotori?”

Kotori, still scarlet around her creamy ears, smiles now, a real smile, one not like diamonds but like sunshine. “If I could be a fashion designer, I would. I invited Horacio Gulli tonight, actually – have you seen him? I thought about showing him my childhood designs, but, oh, it was embarrassing. So much _lace._ ”

“Nonsense,” Eli urges, “you were so good. You’re probably still amazing. Maybe you can design on the side.”

“I have to be designing lesson plans for the whole country, now,” sighs Kotori. “What about you, Eli? What do you miss from before we grew up?”

There’s a horrible silence. Eli can’t remember the last time she did something for herself instead of the Magisterium. Thrall whimpers.

A bell from further inside the party sails through the air, clear as crystal. Dinner is ready.

**

At home, Eli reads the newspaper.

It might be a little low-class to have to read the morning news when scrying glasses and servile witches deliver updates from across the country fast as light, but there’s something nice about the crinkling of paper between Eli’s perfectly manicured nails and the plain, reassuring checkered black-and-white print lines. Thrall likes to chew on the corners, too, so it’s a good deal all around.

The kitchen staff brings Eli a platter of breakfast foods, hot and greasy, and Eli reaches around the edges of her paper and gropes the mahogany table until her finger come into contact with a roll, which she chews thoughtfully. Her father comes down the stairs, through the hall and into the dining room. She can tell by the lumping noises of his echidna daemon. He turns on the glass radio without speaking to her, and by the wind that rustles her paper, Eli can tell the staff is bringing him breakfast as well.

There’s a peaceable sort of silence – it’s broken occasionally by the guards and their wolf daemons sometimes growling at each other, or Eli’s father cursing at something the radio’s saying, but it’s a nice morning overall. After about twenty minutes, there’s a scrabbling of paws on the hardwood surface, and Eli’s father _snarls_.

“What the _hell is this?”_ he wants to know, and Eli lowers the paper, and Thrall barks, sharp and shrill.

Her little sister, Alisa, has come down for breakfast in a pretty yellow sundress. It makes her strawberry hair shine. Behind her is a big golden retriever. Eli shivers in horror, because like any person, she knows a settled daemon when she sees one.

The staff retreats to the kitchens, banging pots and pans most convincingly, and Eli’s too afraid to rise and retreat from the room. She can’t abandon Alisa like this.

“A _cur?!I_ My own daughter has the soul of a mangy _dog_?” Alisa takes the yelling stoically, her thin thirteen-year-old expression composed into the poker face the Ayases have been taught from birth. “How dare you, Alisa. We did not raise you to be this inappropriate – it’s against everything we stand for an elite young lady to have a _dog_ daemon. You were… you were groomed to be better than this.” Her father is almost spitting. “What kind of servile trash have you become?”

“Nobody can help it,” Thrall mumbles into Eli’s ear, jumping up to paw her shoulder sadly. Looking at her little sister being berated, her heart feels like it’s coming out of her chest.

“No,” she whispers back, “they can’t.”

On the radio, a newsclip is playing. Eli can’t raise her newspaper, and though she hasn’t really spoken to Alisa since they were children, she can’t bear to see her sister cry. The announcer is talking about a proposed bill in the Ministry of Law – “Intercision, folks, you heard it here first! Since the drama between the Magisterium Boards of Governors and Health, the Law office has proposed a new way of dealing with criminals rather than sending them to the blades of experimenters – find out in ten minutes when we get back!” Nobody comments on this. Eli’s father is still hissing venom at Alisa, pointing violently.

Eli hates herself, but she gets up, grabs Thrall into her arms, and leaves through the kitchen door. Thrall bites her for being a coward, and she knows she deserves it.

“Are you ashamed of my form?” asks Thrall as they pelt up the carved staircases, the shrieking of her father and the horrible hisses of air finally escaping her sister’s lips following them.

“No,” says Eli, and presses her fingertips into Thrall’s coarse fur, feeling the short, spiky hairs against her nails. She tells the truth. “Foxes are clever. We’re acceptable to them.”

“It’s our destiny,” says Thrall.

“Yes,” is all Eli can say, and she closes the doors to her wing gratefully.

**

“Goodbye, dear,” trills Eli’s mother from the foyer, and Eli comes out of the sitting room with a book in one hand and a bandage in the other. “We’re off to the office – oh, I made that rhyme, didn’t I? Aren’t I clever?”

“The cleverest,” says Eli unthinkingly. “Goodbye.”

Her parents are still fiddling with their cases and papers by the door, guards with wolves before them and behind them. Alisa is somewhere in the mansion, granted, but Eli knows she will never find her sobbing little sister. She’s too good at hiding, after all these years. A great shame settles in Eli’s stomach like a lump of crystal hanging from the chandeliers. At least Alisa has a superior dog daemon. That means she’s destined to be a superior servile.

A nattering ring echoes through the house. Eli’s nearest to the telephone in the entryway, but she stands where she is as a maid sprints down two flights to catch it, her panting Chihuahua daemon half a step behind, the majority of the master Ayase family watching her curiously.

“It’s Hoshizora Rin,” says the maid, one hand covering the speaker.

 “The eldest Ayase daughter?” the maid says into the phone, and turns her eyes to Eli with a clear question. Eli nods, and the maid says thankfully, “Yes, she’s here. One moment, ma’am.”

 “Excellent choice of friends,” Eli’s father calls up the landing. “She’ll be going far in the world – stick with people like her, Eli.”

“This is Ayase Eli.” Her parents finally move out the door.

“Hi!” says Rin’s voice, and even though it’s reasonably early in the morning, her tone is laced with cheer and sunshine. “I was thinking we should catch up some more since the party! It’s been a few days, so I thought we could go out into the city for some fun.”

“That’s vague,” says Eli, settling in to lean on the wall.

“Mistress Ayase, I do wish you wouldn’t scratch the wallpaper,” says the maid frettfully as Thrall sharpens his claws.

“Thrall, what are you doing?”

“Sorry.”

“What?” asks Rin.

“Oh. Yes, I’ll come into the city. Should I order a liter or our carriage?” says Eli, snapping back to the conversation.

“No need,” slings Rin into the phone. “I’ve got one of those fancy new machines. I’ll meet you on your lands about noon.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It’s so much… dirtier than she had expected.

Rin’s automated machine thrashes the cobblestone paths with horrible screeching rubbery noises; they rocket down the busy streets and through patches of messy, scraggling children with their fluttering, fluid daemons gazing at the machine’s momentous four wheels. It’s loud. It’s shiny. It’s everything that screams _wealth_ and _having_ , and Eli is disturbed by the pale squalor of the urban center that Rin drives them through. Thrall sticks his head out the window after Eli rolls down the startling glass window by hand. His tongue lolls, and Eli feels his excitement through her bones.

She hasn’t left her lofty uptown bubble in years, but Rin chatters comfortably to fill the silences and redirect Eli’s wrinkled nose. “How have you been? How’s Thrall? What have you parents been up to? Do you want to hear about my courses in economics? I met a weird intern at my father’s latest conference – oh, someone attacked the manor the other day but it was actually just a hit ordered by the North Anglos since my uncle decided against marrying one of their princesses, I think –”and on and on. Rin can _go_. Her daemon, Fuku, waves his tail and seems to smile out the back window.

After a few more minutes of Rin twisting the steering device back and forth and quite a lot more jolting to sudden stops as the young heiress manages to just avoid flattening sprinting children and women holding baskets, they come to a growling halt just outside a tea house in the merchant district by the coast. Eli can smell the fish market from here, the air tinged with the lightest flavoring of salt, and Rin waves her out of the car with a grin that shows just the tips of her teeth. Fuku yawns.

Thrall leaps down and raises his whiskers at the muddy footpaths in the distance, but the majority of the merchant district is paved with grey stones, smooth from years of foot traffic and loads on wheels. Eli feels out of place – too glossy, too trim for this world of middle-class men and women gazing at Rin’s ridiculous, conspicuous automotive. These people have dark circles under their eyes and tired, leathery hands, maps of their years in the wrinkles of their foreheads and the exhausted scars of life on their skin with children scampering in dust. Eli and Rin are all youth and spotless class, clear skin and the shiny nails and hair that says, _I was born into this_.

Rin already has one foot propping open the swinging door of the tea house. The scent of spices and freshly chopped wood comes from the door, warring with the sea tang from the outside air, and Eli turns her back on the sullen public watching her. Fuku leaps at Thrall excitedly, and Thrall bites him in the tail, lightly. They chase each other into the shop, nearly tripping Eli. Years of ballet lessons save her as she dances out of the way to avoid brushing Fuku’s fur with her legs. The taboo of contact with another person’s daemon almost moves her body for her.

Inside, the tea house is woodsy-themed, wallpapered in pine and definitely minimalist in furniture and decoration. A few customers, daemons on shoulders and baskets against legs, rest in chairs or lean against tables, clutching traditional small cups in both palms. It smells fresh, somehow, clear and sweet yet fragrant. Nothing floral, nothing fruity, just _real_ , like the time Eli took a family trip to the Southern forests and sat at the edge of the lodging house’s wrought-iron boundaries, gazing into the infinity of the dense foliage and listening to the crackle of living things just outside of her reach.

She feels like taking off her diamond earrings, but Rin snatches Fuku from the ground and takes a seat in a chair carved to look like flowering vines and grins up, her own ruby ear bands twining about her lobes and sparkling in the reflection of sunlight.

“I’m a regular here,” she says, no hush in her carrying voice. Fuku, well-behaved in public but always ready for fun, waves his tail at her ankles and lets out a very real cat _mrow,_ causing some other daemons to bristle at him. “Try the peppermint. It’s imported from the West.” The solitary beige door in the back of the shop slides open with a puff of steam.

“Good afternoon, Hoshizora Rin,” says a slight girl in a pale green apron, both arms full of a wide silver tray. She sticks out an elbow, holding the door for her daemon.

Eli is gentle-bred, so her jaw does not drop when she sees the serving girl’s daemon, but she inhales just the smallest bit louder than she intends. Thrall is as skilled as she is, so he does not bark; simply cocks his ears as a beautiful seventeen-point stag thrusts his careful head through the door.

“Hanayo!” says Rin cheerfully, and actually gets up to help support the tray. The daemon’s hooves clack gracefully against the ground as he maneuvers about the tables and customers, moving rather farther from Hanayo than Eli would expect as his human and Rin settle the tea-laden tray on a table. His ruff is a deep chestnut brown, his great muzzle speckled cloudy. The stag flicks one fuzzy, thick ear at Thrall, elegant eyes shrewd, then gazes out the wall-length window with a benevolent indifference.

The girl, Hanayo, wipes her shaking hands on her apron and turns beet red when Rin drags her over to the table where Eli still sits watching the deer daemon. “Rin says you’re her friend from childhood.”

Eli moves her gaze to the serving girl. She’s small, shrinking, clearly beside herself with nerves and fluttering fingers. How could her soul possibly be the magnificent beast dipping his impressive head to a departing customer? “My name is Ayase Eli,” she responds calmly, and moves to shake the tea-girl’s hand.

“Oh,” says Hanayo. “Like… the Director of the Board of Governors, Ayase?” Eli nods, a touch uncomfortable, and the girl blinks feathery lashes over huge eyes, fast enough to nearly faint. “I’m… just… Koizumi Hanayo.”

“Just?” asks Rin indignantly. “You’re great! Don’t put yourself down like that.”

Fuku jumps away from their table and the trembling Hanayo, padding over to the corner where the stag daemon stands, breathtakingly lovely even while stationary. Rin has always been very close to Fuku, so she stands at once, almost without taking notice of her own actions. Hanayo and Eli just watch.

Fuku gazes up. “What is he doing with Viridian?” Hanayo mumbles. The cat’s mouth opens, and the deer rolls an eye the size of the cat’s foot down to gaze at him. There’s a quiet exchange, and then Fuku butts Viridian’s hind leg gently. Hanayo grabs Rin’s hand. Everyone is surprised for a moment, the freeze like the flash of sunlight behind a blanketed night sky.

“Well,” says Eli, because daemon interactions are always indicative of _something_ , even if she can’t figure them out. Thrall twitches his whiskers and sighs.

Rin looks at her fingers, held in a near-deathgrip by Hanayo’s curled palm, and then they break apart and look chagrined.

“The usual order, then?” blurts Hanayo.

“Right,” says Rin, who seems vaguely unsettled. In a second, her feline grin is back, perfect pointed teeth sweeping out from beneath her rosy lips. Fuku weaves through the tables to them, and paws Rin’s shin until she holds him in her lap. Hanayo half-runs to the back door, ignoring a customer raising his hand for the dues.

Eli’s never seen someone who can move so far from her daemon. Hanayo’s only in the other room for a few minutes before she returns with two cups and a cute kettle decorated in spiraling black thorns. Because Eli’s the guest, Rin pours for her, expression pinched in a way that may as well be screeching “don’t ask.”

“Nice place,” Eli says pointlessly. “Quite a charming neighborhood.”

“It’s foul compared to your standards, and don’t I know it,” Rin replies listlessly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, please. It may not be what we’re used to, but it’s lovely. I’m not all that shallow.” Their daemons, still beneath their feet at the table for two, stare at each other. Thrall boxes Fuku on the head with a paw, one sharp snap, and they settle down friendly enough after that.

“Listen,” Rin says as she drains her small cup in one rash gulp, then looks as if she regrets downing hot tea, “I invited you out here without guards today for a reason.”

“Oh?” says Eli, who has learned it’s much better to be ambiguous and vague when people begin whispering so intensely. She’s thankful her daemon knows how to be subtle. Somehow she can’t stop looking at Viridian, still peacefully immobile at the side of the tea shop as Hanayo picks up cups and brings tea out, the swinging door sending blasts of hot air back and forth.

“Yeah,” Rin says. “Yeah,” she repeats, more quietly, seemingly to herself. “I don’t… know how to explain. I thought maybe you could help.”

“Have you considered bringing this problem to a personal therapist or a work consultant?” asks Eli breezily, lifting her steaming cup with three fingers and feeling like a completely worthless friend. Are they still friends, though? How much could they possibly have in common after all these years, with all these changes, and what could she possibly say when they’re half a mile from the fish market? What could Ayase Eli possibly do for Hoshizora Rin?

Rin narrows her eyes slightly, the sunshine vanishing from her tone. “They wouldn’t be able to help me. Both of us have been born into my problem, see?”

“Not really,” admits Eli, and sips.

“I’m not sure I want to be a corporate mogul,” explains Rin. “Maybe I just want to be normal. Maybe I’m not cut out for this grand destiny I keep hearing about.”

Eli puts down her cup and looks closer at her old friend. Rin’s twenty. Maybe nineteen, actually. When they were small, they’d sing silly songs and throw stones into their mansion’s gardens together. Rin flinched at the mention of math, laughed at weird noses, and ran fast like light, lean child’s muscles flexing into what could have been a professional running career. Now she’s focused, charismatic, and trained, but there’s the same smattering of freckles across her nose.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t know if I want to be an heiress to a financial throne. I don’t know if I want a future of bank statements and cocktail parties and being alone in a mansion full of staff.”

Eli narrows her eyes. “You don’t know. You don’t _know_ if you want all of life’s gifts handed to you on a crystal platter?” She lowers her voice, just keeping the edge from ripping through. “Rin. We’re the luckiest souls in the world. The Magisterium is _our_ game, it works for _us_. We’re the perpetrators of justice, law, peace, and plenty in this entire country. We were born to do this, to keep the empire running.”

Rin slaps the table, finally losing her smile. “And what if Thrall had settled as a hamster, as he’d been threatening to do when you were ten, huh? Would you still be going on about destiny and privilege then?”

Eli frowns. “There are no such things as _what if_ s or other universes. Thrall was always meant to be what he is, the same way you and I are meant to be the next generation of Magisterium and Otonokizaka.”

“You don’t know that,” Rin says, crossing her arms and looking close to tears.

“Look, Rin,” says Eli, and jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the door. They both glance past the cobblestoned roads, into the dirt paths and alleys just a few blocks down the street from the middle-class commercial zone. In the far distance, there’s a woman clad in what looks like rags with a hulking bear-like daemon talking to the owner of a stand, making hand gestures. They seem to be arguing. Eli’s voice goes soft, persuasive, like she’s talking to a child that needs reasoning. “Do you want to be scrubbing in the dust like the unfortunates? Stay with the story you were born and raised for. It’s for our own goods.”

Rin leaps up, Fuku right behind her, and sprints out, heavy boots thunking along the hardwood. Eli feels her ears and face redden, like she’s been physically stained with the shame of hurting her friend.

She’s just getting up after deciding how exactly she’ll contact home when Rin returns with the urchin – Rin bouncing, the woman glowering and rubbing her wrist.

She _wants_ to say, “what the hell are you doing?” but she’s a lady first and foremost, so instead she lets Thrall bark at the hulking panda daemon behind the sprite of a woman and clenches her fists.

“Here’s what I think of _destiny_ ,” hisses Rin, and turns around to face the newcomer. Fuku seems to be smiling. “Nico, is it?”  
  
“Yeah?” snaps the woman, hostile. Her murky hair is long, easily three times Rin’s length – it’s unkempt, like her clothes. Scruffy, like her attitude, and she’s irate like her daemon. The panda is hefty, blocking the door frame and most of the front stoop with his muted chess-patched fur. He rumbles, and Eli looks at those claws.

“Whatever you’re making at your current job – I’m going to multiply it. By one thousand.”

Nico blinks. Her eyes are surrounded by dull bags and red-rimmed, giving her a weary, bloodshot look. She can’t be more than twenty five, but she looks like she’s walked the entire coastline of Japan shoeless. Her daemon makes an odd hissing noise, and she pats his nose behind her back. “Sh, Ni. Sh.” She scowls at Rin. “You can’t be serious. Who even _are_ you?”

“Try me,” says Rin, and makes Eli very nervous by reaching into her suede jacket and removing a slim case. The gloss of her fingernails shine out against its slick black exterior, like dragon scales against sand. “I’ve got enough money on hand to multiply whatever you’ve got.”

Nico looks back and forth between Eli and Rin like she can’t decide who she’s going to slap first. Hanayo is definitely biting her nails in the corner. For the first time all afternoon, Viridian seems to be paying attention, his lovely huge eyes actually facing Nico’s panda daemon.

Nico and Eli watch silently as Rin opens the case, bills pouring from it like rain. Eli glances over them. It’s small change compared to what they make per day, and nothing compared to her parents’ net worth. A coin bounces against her open-toed shoe. Thrall is frozen, whiskers trembling against the skin of her leg where he curls, paws on the base of the table. “I don’t want your help,” whispers Nico, and her voice is strained like she’s carrying several people in her arms. Her daemon rumbles again, betraying her with his coal-black eyes fixed like a meteor crash on that crumpled money.

“You aren’t destined to be a street girl, the same way I’m not destined to be… what I am,” says Rin, watching the panda watch her hands filled with riches. “Think of this as defying fate.”

“I can’t think about fate, and destiny, and purpose,” says Nico, and her little palms move and grasp the bills, stuffing them violently and begrudgingly into her shabby dress folds, papers disappearing faster than candy at school, “I have to think about my sisters. And my brother.” She sneers at them, somehow looking hardest at Eli, daring her with disgrace etched in the hateful twist of her button nose.

“Nico?” asks Hanayo quietly, creeping up, and Nico sniffs; rubs her nose with the back of her hand like a little girl. The panda, Ni, shifts uncomfortably. Rin is glowing, as though she’s accomplished something incredible. Her eyes move to Hanayo’s round, sweet face; stay there with lightning-strike focus. Eli shifts anxiously, something imperceptible bleeding into the air. Is it possible to inhale emotion?

“What?”

“Would you… would you have time in your schedule to work here? To help out a bit, I mean?” Hanayo bites her full lips, teeth poking out like a chipmunk while Viridian tilts his graceful head. Fuku lets out a huge purr. “I’ve been needing someone else to help out in the mornings. It’s always so swamped here, and people have a hard time moving around Viridian. Please Nico, will you work with me?”

Eli knows at once that Hanayo’s clever phrasing and trembling disguise has worked – the girl from the neighboring district wouldn’t work in a merchant’s shop if her life had depended on it – but Hanayo morphing the offer into a request has Ni breathing from his mouth, teeth exposed and tongue lolling almost before Nico can nod sharply. “Fine. I’ll do it.” A pause. “But I don’t owe you people anything. I’m nobody’s charity case.”

**

Outside by the automotive, which miraculously nobody has stolen, Rin grabs Eli by the elbow, strong fingers gripping almost around the bone. “See, Eli? We can change the future, even if it’s just bit by bit.”

Eli looks back in the window to the tea house, seeing Hanayo stroke Viridian’s great neck and Nico pick up the very first royal glazed teapot she’s probably ever touched. “If you give up your spot at Otonokizaka, you won’t be able to do that anymore. To alter somebody’s life in an instant.”

“Maybe not with money,” says Rin, merry once more, and helps Fuku hop into the back. “I can do it with song, or kindness, or just by listening to them.”

“Well,” says Eli coolly, tucking Thrall into the crook of her arm where he growls happily, “That’s all they care for, you know. It’s all money, with these people.”

Rin starts the engine. They both listen to the aggressive roar. “Not Hanayo. Friendship can go past class, or riches. We’re close because we work well together.”

“How did you even meet a working-girl?”

“That’s not important,” says Rin, and hits the gas.


	3. Chapter 3

Eli sees Alisa at the required family dinners, and the young woman stares down at her plate with dark eyes and a twitching mouth. She’s growing thinner and thinner despite the mountain of food available, and Mother doesn’t so much as look at her youngest child. She’s a ghost in her own home; a wisp of a girl growing up alone, surrounded by souls.

Then Eli sees Alisa in the library.

It’s been a week or so since Father took Alisa to task for existing. Her daemon, Diamanté, is coiled by her feet at the pudgy armchair, saying “I told you, we’ll be fine. We’re not the heir, anyway. We’re more suited to-” and he coughs and wags his tail as Eli trips into a bookcase, dropping novels in a thick hailstorm of leather-bound spines and loose pages. “Good evening, Eli.” He speaks for Alisa, glancing at his human, who covers her face with her hands and turns away.

“Yes.” So this is how they’ll do it, then? Eli loves Alisa, loves her sister with the same golden hair and sunny eyes that gaze out from the mirror, but they haven’t spoken beyond the necessities in months, years, maybe. Eli starts sticking books at random back on the shelves, feeling a queer shame flourish up her spine like a thorny vine as she fumbles with the texts. She didn’t defend her own sister, couldn’t prevent her own blood from settling into the mark of help, destined to be… what? A housekeeper? No. Alisa is still an Ayase. She’s also the second child, so her fate was to be married off into the Magisterium ranks anyway. But it’s one thing to know your lot, and another to be so ground down by it. Eli puts down her books slowly and feels Thrall’s humming approval as she kneels to hug her little sister.

Alisa sobs and sobs.

**

Eli and Rin go back to the tea house in between responsibilities as the next generation of governmental directors and billionaires. Well, Rin has next to no real responsibilities in lieu of greasing her way through the financial world’s sons and daughters, but Eli manages paperwork and meeting her future subordinates, all unsympathetic smiles and chilling efficiency. Thrall spends his time making snarky comments in their mind, and Eli gets to practice her poker face.

One day, Eli’s at her father’s office clearing out old memos and proposals while Thrall chews on her quill, just to be contrary. “Stop it,” she says, and shoves him off, but he crawls back up the mahogany legs of the desk and moves his whiskers forward impishly, leaving gouges in the wood. “You’re lucky he doesn’t care for his work desk,” she says, and picks him up by the front paws while he snorts. “We’d have to oversee the replacement, and I don’t have time for that.”

“Ayase?” There’s a man at the door, probably not much older than Eli herself. His ferret daemon, a rich cream color, lies circling his neck, stubby paws at his Adam’s apple. He’s impeccably dressed, hair slicked back.

“That’s me,” says Eli, and drops Thrall. He shoots underneath the desk at once. The man’s eyes move over the sumptuous office, velvet drapes and smoking-wood decorations with careful interest, then drop to give Eli a once-over. “What do you want?”

“I’ve been sent to collect the retainer’s info from last quarter,” he says, and steps into the room. “I… wasn’t under the impression a woman would be in here.”

Eli hesitates, and the man circles the desk and starts pawing through the papers at the side. “Hm, these will do.”

“No,” says Eli before she can stop herself, and her hand shoots out and grabs his wrist. “Those are not relevant to your work.” The man’s eyes flash, and his other hand comes up – Thrall explodes from under the desk and sinks his fox fangs into the ferret’s back.

The man screams and wheels backward, Eli feels Thrall’s pressure in her own teeth, grinding and piercing, and Eli sees her own foot come up and stomp the man dead center in the chest with a platform stiletto. He crashes to the floor, gasping. Thrall drags the squirming ferret behind Eli, paws holding the other daemon firmly. She squeaks. “You’re hurting us!” The man grimaces, because of course he cannot move.

Eli hears herself as if from a distance. “My name is Ayase Eli. I’m not _some woman_. I expect full obedience as heir to the Board and nothing more. You are terminated, effectively immediately. You will collect your belongings and go with the guards that will accompany you.” Her hand shoots out into her field of vision and mashes a button just inside the drawer of the desk. At once, the echo of boots and low daemon growls carry out into the study from the hall. She takes a deep breath, and Thrall, jaws full of ferret fur, yowls his triumph.

**

“Your tea,” says Nico to Rin, and slaps a few cups down on the table. “Peppermint, or whatever. And the usual blend.”

Hanayo has rearranged the tables in the tea house to form two clusters with one main aisle so Ni and Viridian can actually walk about the place without overturning pots or stepping on some poor customer’s daemon. “Er, thanks again, Nico,” says Rin, and pours for Eli.

Nico just grimaces, her clear eyes brimming with ice, and Ni steps on Fuku’s tail as he lumbers after his human.

Eli lowers her voice to a murmur and tells Rin what happened at the office. “No way,” laughs Rin, and stuffs a sweet from the tray into her mouth. Fuku, letting Eli know Rin isn’t a complete jerk, nuzzles Thrall comfortingly, wrapping their tails together like a hugger vine. “What did your dad say?”

“He laughed, too,” says Eli, and swirls the pale green tea in her cup, looking at her trim fingernails. “Said he didn’t care what I did, as long as I let the fools know how the Ayases did things, and that we do things proper.”

“Attacking a daemon, though, kind of risky,” says Rin with vigor, and she’s half-watching Hanayo across the shop chatting to a few women with bread in their baskets.

“Yes,” Eli admits, “but Thrall was bigger, and had more teeth and claws than a ferret. Plus, that assistant was going to strike me. He should never be able to live that down.” Her skin feels tight around her wrist, like the burn of his hand will remain – a shadow, maybe. A memory.

“Sounds like you ruined his career and possibly his life,” Rin says neutrally.

“Good.”

“Hey, hey,” says Hanayo cheerfully, moving up to them. She rubs her hands dry on her mint-colored apron and beams at them – she’s the complete opposite of Nico’s surly attitude; finally opened up since Eli’s been around more; Hanayo’s like a sweet bloom in spring – “My friends are here. Would you like to meet them?”

“Sure,” says Rin at once, dousing herself in tea as she jumps up. Eli rises slower and follows them to the corner table, Hanayo dabbing at Rin’s shirt with her apron.

A woman with carroty hair sits dipping pastries into her tea, crumbling flakes spilling around her wrists. Her table partner watches Eli and Rin approach, rabbit daemon leaping to the table to flick his great long ears. “Kousaka Honoka, Sonoda Umi, this is Hoshizora Rin and Ayase Eli.” Hanayo rubs at her elbows. “We’re all… friends.”

“Hi! Nice to meet you,” grins Honoka, and shakes Eli’s hand, fingers sticky with tea. “I’m from the sweet shop down the street. Let me know if you’re into fudge; we’ve got a sale going on this weekend.” Eli smiles – Honoka is easy to speak to, big eyes and sincerity in her breath like oxygen. She’s especially close to her daemon, an immense brown bear that snaps reminders at Honoka to watch her sugar level. He paws at the table and generally restricts traffic flow, Ni and Viridian tripping over him more than once.

Sonoda Umi is more reserved. Her gaze settles with a coldness that Eli recognizes from co-members of the Board: a sturdy, imperturbable observation that shows nothing within. Her daemon, Jasper the rabbit, thumps his hind feet on the floor and hops sporadically. “I’m an instructor at the dojo across the way from the tea house,” she says politely. Her eyes are so striking, drilling – she’s watching. She makes Hanayo sit down and take a break, chatting casually about other vendors on the block and weather, regarding the entire room and missing no detail.

Eli feels strange, becoming some sort of permanent fixture at the tea house. When Nico serves, she treats Eli and Rin with a stomped-down rage and badly-hidden jealous; as though dusting poison in sprinkles would make someone drink, Eli thinks reproachfully. She doesn’t deserve Nico’s distaste for the upper class; she’s been nothing but kind. Rin gave the woman half of a fortune.

Nico takes to the light charms of Hanayo, Honoka, and Umi, but Ni continues to snap at Thrall’s tail when he visits. Umi’s gaze never warms. Hanayo’s smile is strained as she calculates profits at the end of each day. Eli becomes tired of this; snatches Rin’s arm on the way out one night while the wind tears posters from boards and flings pebbles through the air. Her hair is whipping around her neck, and Thrall bites at her ankles, but Eli squints through the descending night and says, fiercely, “I can’t do this anymore. Take Maki or Kotori, but I’m done here.”

They frown at each other in silence, and Rin nods, seeing when she’s lost.

Eli doesn’t care what game Rin’s playing.

**

“Three dead at the Latesummer Wharf in the latest of public outcries against the new Intercision Bill-” spits the radio, and Eli’s father turns the dial lazily. He stands, stretching, and a butler lunges from where he’s been against the wall to take the chair.

“Heard much from the Law offices?” he asks, directing the question at Eli’s mother, who shrugs, blonde hair streaming down her back in a graceful flow of gold.

“The news hit the country half a week ago and there have been near to a dozen riots,” she grumbles from the other side of the endless table, and hunches back over her plate of quail. Her daemon, a king cobra, twines about the dining bench leg, slinky scales rubbing against the smooth carved wood.

Eli, manipulating her silly fancy utensils deftly, slips a cut of bird to one of the house dogs. Well-trained, it darts silently beneath an empty chair to consume its treat, only to be tackled by an equally quiet enemy dog. They tussle noiselessly, platinum-laced collars and dull canines flashing in the dim anabaric light from the vaulted chandelier. “What’s the premise of the bill?” Eli asks her parents. Her father is still standing, polishing his glasses importantly. He speaks without looking at her or Alisa, across from Eli and staring, as usual, at her nearly full plate. Thrall, beneath the table, sidesteps another house dog and puts one paw on Diamanté’s flank. Eli feels the tension flutter through her breastbone. She hates to _think_.

“Any criminal committing an act found to be‘inhuman’ will be treated as such and become exactly that: their daemons will be cut away.”

“Cut away?” asks Eli quickly, and her father sits back down. The butler takes his napkin. The only noises are the clinks of the crystal-cut goblets and Eli’s mother, still sawing genteelly at her meat.

“Through research done at the Ministry of Health, experimental theologists have discovered a manganese-titanium alloy capable of dissolving daemon/human bonds,” says her father. Thrall shivers, and Eli feels repulsion crash through her bones. It’s as if he’d suggested decapitation is back in style. The loss of the bond? The loss of Thrall against her heartbeat and inside her mind? Thrall darts back to Eli’s feet, curls up against her bare knees as she sits and presses his soft tail into the backs of her legs. They are one. They are one.

“How can the Magisterium condone such mutilation?” she wants to know, and puts one hand under the table to allow Thrall to nip her fingertips.

Alisa answers. “Weren’t you listening to the news? That’s the same question the populace wants to know. The chaos at the wharf was just one demonstration. They’re angry that the Magisterium created and sponsored such a bill designed to so maim its citizens. They’re worried it’s going to happen to them, if it passes.”

Eli is chilled to the core. Her father says, “Don’t worry about it. The people are ridiculous, always ransacking and looting their own homes in times such as these.” He glances at his children, and his daemon hisses lightly. “You’ll be staying here for the next few days as the Ministry of Law deals with the outbreak.” He’s up once again, and this time strides from the room with the confidence of a man obeyed, daemon skittering at his side.

“Keep safe, dears,” says their mother, and rises as well. A maid arrives to escort her to her after-dinner stroll through the gardens, and the kitchen staff swoops in to retrieve their plates, mutely.

Eli and Alisa exchange glances. “Do you know anything else, Alisa?”

“Yeah,” she says softly, “the commoners are terrified. They have so many questions. How did the experimenters learn of a safe way to cut souls? They fear the results of illegal, covered-up experiments.”

“Not illegal,” murmurs Eli, Thrall at her feet, looking up at her with love in his cobalt eyes. “Murderers were given to the Ministry of Health as punishment. Nishikino Maki told me.”

“More wine, madam?” asks a butler. Eli shakes her head, waves them all off.

“That’s a kind of deterrent,” says Alisa shakenly. “The biggest issue is with the proposal’s wording. Inhuman could mean… anything, objectively. And all the judges are Magisterium-appointed. There’s a huge backlash against what the public sees as another machination by a corrupt government to control the populace.”

“The Magisterium isn’t corrupt,” fires Eli at once, and when Alisa lowers her eyes Eli sees she’s lost the brief trust she’d gained. “Sorry. But this bill isn’t right. Inhuman means… taking away someone’s soul. It means losing a human right.”

**

Eli, restricted to the mansion, spends the next few days reading in the library with Alisa or listening to the radio. The news only brings more reports of anti-Magisterium demonstrations, deaths, and attacks at the Ministry of Law. Sometimes Alisa stays on the phone for hours with friends from her boarding school, a few of which come from merchant backgrounds.

“Why are they _reacting_ so violently to this?” complains Eli to Alisa on the fourth day. She’s bored out of her mind – next she’s going to take up knitting or some other fool thing, “the bill isn’t even law yet. It probably won’t be, with this sort of publicity.”

“Is that what you think?” asks Alisa, surprised. “Most of the people who matter support it. They like to see the people controlled. That’s what the Magisterium stands for.”

Eli is unsure of what to say – that’s her destiny Alisa is subtly deriding, but before she can properly formulate a rebuttal, a maid knocks. There’s a visitor.

**

Maki is quite white-faced as Eli receives her in the sitting room – Maki practically falls into the armchair closest to the fireplace and accepts the drink a servant brings her almost without noticing. Her leopard daemon, Remora, is bristling, pacing back and forth violently along the carpet, tail lashing the trim of the furniture. Eli is tempted to point out the claws tearing at the antique Persian rugs, but changes her mind when Maki leaps back to her feet, slopping gold liquid everywhere. “Eli, we’ve got to leave right now. It’s an emergency.”

Thrall barks once, and Remora dashes over and growls right in his fox face. He’s _huge_. Eli puts her hands on Maki’s shoulders. “What’s happened, Maki?”

“Rin has gone to march in a demonstration against Intercision with one of Nico’s street rat friends,” snarls Maki, and Remora roars, shaking the glass beads of the anabaric lamps. “She’s been taking me to that disgusting nest in the city because she’s forged some sort of parody to a friendship with the tea girl and can’t go alone. I’m met all of the other rats – they’re not much better, really – and Rin’s joined one of them in a protest. She’s going to disgrace the name of Otonokizaka, and ours-” she gestures to Eli and Remora quickly, “with it.”

“You’re right,” says Eli, heart sinking. “We’ve got to stop her.”

“I’ve got a hire waiting,” Maki says quickly, and they sprint from the room, Alisa watching them from down the hall.

**

The tea shop is empty, the sign over the window proclaiming _closed_. Maki hammers at the door anyway.

“You were here half an hour ago, don’t you dare lie to a Nishikino!”

A trembling Hanayo opens the door a crack with a glaring Viridian just over her shoulder. Eli watches the strong curve of those tipped antlers, but Remora’s coiled muscles show a certain willingness for combat, and if Eli had to put money on an outcome, she’d bet on a big cat over venison. “I’m sorry,” says Hanayo weakly, hands twisting in her little mint apron. “I was too afraid to go with them. A Magisterium guard force is circling the Wind District depo, and the wolves scare us.”

Maki meets Eli’s eyes. There’s doom up ahead.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some spiritual power coming your way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just got two new jobs - delays ahead. I'll wrap the whole story up by the end of the month, though. Promise.

Eli and Maki slip through the circling Magisterium guards as best they can – Remora snarls at the other predator daemons, and Eli clutches Thrall to her chest, arms aching with the effort of holding him back as he thrashes his tail, yowling quietly. The air is tight and thick, the shifting masses of people and daemons doing their best not to touch, the great taboo slitting aisles between souls. Eli is jostled by the press, but Remora uses the natural flinch from his glossy coat to clear a path for Maki, who strides like a queen through the crunch of bodies, eyes filled with winter chill and the promise of murder. She moves like the master she already is, and the people understand, stepping sideways and onto each other in an effort to make way.

“They’re centered at the warehouse depos. We need to get there before the march begins and the mob starts moving. We’ll never get to the front if that happens.” Maki slides the words to Eli through clenched teeth as she trods on some toes. Remora snaps at the tail of a man with a cat daemon – he yelps as the teeth connect, and Maki bullets past him, Eli hurrying in her wake, feeling like she’s following the devastation of a hurricane. Hurricane Nishikino.

The flow of traffic leads them through the main intersection of the district – ruddy stones of the uneven road trips them and poke through the thin, pretty soles of Eli’s flats. Street dust mixed with soot fills the air, and Eli has to fish in her dress’s pockets for a handkerchief. Maki wrinkles her nose and continues to nudge people aside until a roughly constructed wooden stage comes into view. The commoners circle the stand, tensions growing as more and more humans and daemons pack themselves into the space. Coos, yowls, and snarls echo between whispered conversations rising in volume. Rin, Fuku and some university-aged boy and his capybara daemon stand tall upon the dais next to a girl who’s picking splinters from her shoes, a huge salt-and-pepper patterned bird balancing on her shoulder, alarming talons piercing deeply into a leather pad. “Ah,” says Maki grimly, and gestures Eli to a halt as they creep into the back of the crowd behind some workers from the fish docks, stinking of the seas. Thrall hops out of Eli’s arms and hits the sandy earth lightly. He sniffs at the footprints in the grime of the road, looking like some sort of natural animal. Remora presses himself into the dust and pulls his tail in close as the heiresses pause to spy. “That other girl is called Toujou Nozomi. She’s another piece of trash from the slums; friend to that Nico character and an oddity all around. I recognize her from the tea shop,” Maki scoffs. Her eyes move to Rin. “We’ve got to get her down.”

“Who dares separate heart and soul? Are we nothing but slaves to the Magisterium? No! We march in ten minutes! Intercision this!” bellows the boy on the stand, and the throng roars back, like they’re all his daemon. It’s loud enough to make the earth move – it’s loud enough to cause Eli’s knees to shake. They don’t belong here, in the mud amongst the rabble. They’re made for velvet wingback chairs and sumptuous meals served by silent staff with trailing dog daemons. There’s no place for such a… a _mortal_ scream, not in Eli’s world.

“Let’s go, let’s get her,” mumbles Maki, “but she’s stronger than us.” She glances at Remora and Thrall.

Eli, understanding, leans down and thinks to her soul, _do we need to be closer?_

_I can do it from here,_ he thinks back, and he and Remora creep through the subtle passageways left by taboo-abiding humans, avoiding fur on skin at all costs.

Eli feels the distance right away – it’s a curious sensation, like the warmth in her body is being spiraled into the center of her ribs, the invisible thread leading her to Thrall growing taut and fraying as he winds away from her. A few more feet and involuntary tears begin at the corners of her eyes. Maki looks unbothered and focused, eyes narrowed, lips moving inaudibly as she directs Remora.

Eli’s fingertips are growing icy as Remora and Thrall finally make it just underneath the overhang of the base of the dais, tails both pressed flat to ground. She looks down and sees her hands turning blue; her teeth are clacking together like she’s chewing the air – Maki frowns at Eli and says, “You are way too connected to your soul” – and then Eli looks back up just in time to see that girl, that Toujou Nozomi notice Thrall crouched to spring. Toujou’s eyes snap up and carve a perfectly straight line directly into Eli’s startled, shivering face, and then Remora explodes from beneath the stage and sinks his titanic teeth into Fuku’s back.  

Rin shrieks, and the other humans on the stand flinch and whirl as she falls to her knees and screams, clutching her back, fingers compulsorily questing for the sensation of fangs in skin. Thrall leaps into the crowd and starts clawing daemons, slashing a chaotic path for Remora to leap with the writhing Fuku still clamped in his jaws. Rin, dragged now by the bond but nearly immobilized by pain, stumbles the few feet off the platform to the ground. She staggers to her feet and sprints after Remora, crashing through the milling people beginning to yell.

Maki lunges almost as soon as Remora reaches them – the fishermen in front of Eli each get one of Maki’s elbows in their sides – and as they wheeze, Maki grabs her daemon’s huge head and kisses him between the ears, avoiding Fuku’s lashing limbs neatly. Eli lets Thrall sail into her arms, heat returning to her body as her soul bites her ears gently. Rin is straight-up slapping people aside – the woman has vanished from the podium, and from some corner of the crowd a busybody yells, “THE GUARD IS HERE.”

At once every human and daemon turn to run, but now it’s truly bedlam with daemons tussling and people exploding into alleyways. There are sirens rising in the city, and the sound is almost drowned out by the howl of wolves.

Eli gets Rin in hand as scattered demonstrators flee around her like a river parting – they take one look at Remora’s dappled coat and wickedly curved claws paired with Maki’s cruel gaze and give the heiresses a wide berth – but Rin is panting, nearly unconscious. Seizing at the dirt, she collapses, and Remora finally consents to release Fuku, who falls at once to Rin and begins gentling her with soft, pained meows. “We’ve got to get to the liter before the Guard pours into the square,” says Maki grimly. She leans down and supports Rin in a bridal carry. “I mean, I’ve got my papers, but there’s a chance they might not recognize the nobility among the commoners. It’s happened before, and Remora can’t fight off fifty wolves at once. Plus the Guard has firearms.”

“We made a mess of things, didn’t we?” asks Eli weakly, looking at the shambles of the crowd. Thrall whimpers.

“I’ll say,” hisses Fuku, and drops his tail as he dances around Maki’s ankles, luminous feline eyes fixed on Rin, who still shivers.

“They deserve it,” Remora says dismissively, padding alongside them. Eli isn’t sure if he means Rin and Fuku, or the entire lower class.

**

Maki is strong and nimble – they make it to the liter without Rin slipping in her arms as the sirens tear through the air behind them. Eli hasn’t yet dropped Thrall. She’s trembling, deep on the inside. Not just from the lingering stress of being so distant from her soul, farther than she’s been since they tested the bond as children, but also from the exposure she feels, the profound sense of unbelonging in the world she sees around her. Tired mothers and fearless, wild children in the streets, darting inside and shuttering their windows when she makes eye contact. Dour men in dirty work clothes, arms full of fishing gear or crates, watching her diamond earrings and trim, unburned skin. She’s nothing; nothing to them despite the fact that she was born to rule their rough, grubby lives.

Eli holds the door while Maki sets Rin inside, letting Fuku jump up onto the cushioned seats. She arranges Rin’s limbs with a curious tenderness and then crawls in. Remora follows. Eli closes the door behind them and makes her way to the other side, where a woman in a green dress stands blocking Eli’s door.

It’s Toujou Nozomi, from the dais, squinting at Eli weirdly. The big bird is loitering around her ankles, smooth grey feathers brushing the gravely earth, brilliant orange eyes like a stream of anabaric light pointed into Eli’s heart.

Eli’s not sure how to respond to any of this – will Toujou attack? She’s very… still, but Eli doesn’t know how to anticipate violence. She glances at the sturdy liter-bearers with their small herbivore daemons. They might be of use in the case of an outbreak, but Toujou is just standing there, still. “Will you move?” Eli asks, finally. “I need to get in that way.”

Toujou has such a clever light in her eyes, though her face is inscrutable. Her hair is endlessly long, flowing down her protective shoulder pad and down her spine in two waves the exact color of early night. “Sure, Ayase Eli.” Her voice is smooth yet pointed. Her tone suggests she could be insulting Eli, somehow, or commenting on the weather. Toujou takes on very deliberate step sideways, daemon like a statue at her feet. Eli moves forward and curls her fingers into the handle of the door.

“Don’t bother Hoshizora Rin again,” blurts Eli, and throws herself inside.

As they rise on the backs of the bearers, Eli turns to glimpse out the gauzy curtain. Toujou frowns after them, and mouths something to her daemon, who takes to the air.


	5. Chapter 5

“She’s not doing so well,” reports Maki, and through the tinny noise of the landline Eli can hear gloom bleeding through the static.

“That’s... unfortunate,” Eli says, and cups the receiver closer to her ear. She’s in the library. Alisa and Diamanté are reading _The History of Everything_ out loud to each other by turns. Diamanté has a deep tone, his voice like the rumble of the slow-moving earth. It’s oddly comforting for a rainy night - Eli almost feels like sleeping. Thrall, curled in a wingback chair, definitely feels the same way, little sides rising and falling evenly. His nose twitches.

“Her parents have finally stomped out her traveling to the merchant’s district,” Maki continues. “I can only imagine the arguments that ensued.”

Eli remembers when they were children. Maki was certainly prone to temper tantrums of the highest volume - Rin was more of a tackling child. Eli can’t recall her own youthful antics - maybe she was just boring? She’s starting to get that sense. Thrall blinks from the chair and yawns, sending blips of coziness into Eli’s thoughts and making her eyelids heavy.

“Anyway,” Maki coughs on the line. “I called her last night. She was... rather angry at me.”

“Did you explain it was for her own good?” asks Eli. “It really was a bad decision to go with the rabble-rousers... I mean, we all heard the news. Fourteen injured at that rally.”

"Were they counting Rin?” Maki snaps. “Daemons don’t even bleed. Anyway. Rin just told me that if the Guard hadn’t attacked, nobody would have been hurt. As if those people have ever had a truly peaceful demonstration. They always seem to beat up some random passerby or loot some hardworking family’s storefront.”

“Well. Is there anything else you know about her?”

“She’s performing her corporate duties with exemplary aplomb,” finishes Maki primly. “You should come visit her with me tomorrow, Eli,” her voice dips a little, “I think she won’t throw me out if you come along. Maybe we should bring Kotori as well?”

“That’ll be good,” says Eli. “If it isn’t raining too hard then.” It was for Rin’s own good, Eli tells herself, and Thrall rolls over, turning his back to her.

After she terminates the connection, Alisa raises her head. “Was that Maki?”

“Yes,” says Eli, and takes a seat across from Diamanté, who lolls his tongue at her in greeting.

Alisa reaches up to the lamp to adjust the anabaracity. The room grows brighter, dousing shadows in warm orange light. “Father told me to ask you to have the Nishikinos over for a dinner when they return from their vacation.” She doesn’t glance up.

“The Nishikinos are on vacation?” asks Eli, and crinkles her nose. Maki had sounded very much in the country.

“No,” Alisa says, and turns the page for Diamanté carefully, deliberately. “Father and Mother are on vacation.”

“Oh,” says Eli. “When will they be back?”

“I don’t know,” Alisa responds. She pulls the book close to her chest, and starts reading, her light voice painting the scene behind Eli’s eyelids as she lays her head down on a pile of leather-bound novels and succumbs to Thrall’s exhaustion.

**

“Hoshizora Rin on the landline for you, ma’am,” says the maid from outside Eli’s bedroom door. Eli waits for the pattering of the daemon’s paws to fade into the distance as the maid retreats from Eli’s wing before she pounces on the landline. She’s been receiving a dearth of calls lately. She’s going to drive the bills up, and Father will frown at her.

“Ayase Eli speaking.” Thrall dances around her feet, his tail _thwapping_ into her bare shins.

“Hi Eli,” says Rin neutrally.

“Ah... good morning.”

“Will you do me a favor?” There’s no more sunshine in Rin’s voice - it’s all clouds. Maybe even an eclipse.

“Of course,” says Eli, who knows her debts.

“I left something at the tea shop with Hanayo last week,” Rin says flatly. “I need it. It’s very important to me.”

“What is it?”

“A small handwritten book. Just tell Hanayo I told you to get it.”

“Rin, I-” The line beeps. Rin is gone.

**

“Where are you going?” Alisa pauses with one hand on the stair railing. Eli freezes, struggling with one arm still half-stuck in a sleeve. Thrall’s ears fall.

Alisa’s in a flowing white summer dress. She’s stopped at the top of the stairs, dainty hand on the rail with the lightest of touches like a petal on water. With her sleek daemon at her heels and her head tilted to one side, hair a flow... Eli feels her stomach cramp. Her sister is beautiful. Alisa deserves everything and Eli can give her nothing, because her destiny is anything except happiness.

“Going to town,” says Eli instead of crying.

“Is that a good idea?”

“No,” Eli replies, and flings herself through the double doors, Thrall shaking out his fur in the rain.

**

Expectedly, the greeting Eli receives as they enter the tea house is frosty. Hanayo stutters to a halt in the aisle – she’s too graceful to slop tea over the edges of the clustered cups on her aloft tray, but Viridian, in his usual post by the kitchen door, raises his spectacular head of antlers and stamps the floor, observing Thrall.

The store has only three customers, all bunched by the steamy windows to be out of the rain pouring from the eaves. Eli takes a hesitant step past the threshold, and Nico comes through the kitchen door, scraping her fingertips in her rosy apron, lips pursed. Ni shoulders his way past her knees and lunges towards Eli, stumpy paws outstretched for Thrall, who dodges neatly, barking.

“Hanayo!” Eli says, hands at her sides helplessly as Ni tosses tables aside, grating a panda’s shriek, and Nico looks as if she might spit. Viridian clops over to stand sideways in front of his human, green eyes vanishing behind the wall of autumn-brown hide. The other customers decide to take their chances in the storm, pouring coins onto their dishes and making a hasty exit.

“Stop, stop,” Hanayo’s voice comes from behind her daemon, and her hands push ineffectually at the stag’s front legs, but it’s like scratching at a wall.

Thrall is much too fast for Ni to even get close to, he’s only snapping up air behind the speedy fox – but Nico is edging towards Eli, glaring with a heat that could set fire to the rain. “You ruined the entire demonstration. There should _never_ have been injuries. The Guard shouldn’t have even been involved.” Her face crunches with the force of her scowl. “People like you make me sick, destroying what little others have got…”

“I didn’t _bring_ them,” Eli says impatiently, and reaches out and rights some chairs, hands shaking. She’s just in a skirt ensemble with a dress. No diamonds in her earlobes or designer shoes decorating her feet, but she can read the glances from the streets, and she still bleeds money. Thrall is too glossy, or Eli’s skin is too clear – or maybe it’s intangible, in the way she’s been bred to breathe. People like her, huh?

“You’re wrecking my shop,” begs Hanayo, and Viridian finally strides away from Hanayo and sweeps into the kitchen, pausing to trip Ni as he misses Thrall once again.

Nico winces as Ni’s chin hits the ground. Hanayo approaches. “Ayase Eli… how can we help you?”

“I just,” Thrall returns and twines around Eli’s legs, whiskers brushing back as he smiles reassuringly, “I need something for Rin. She wanted me to get her a… thing.”

“GREAT,” shoots Nico. “That means you can leave faster.” She stalks off to skulk against the back wall, her panda daemon watching closely with a beady gaze.

Hanayo is pale, and Viridian pokes his head from the kitchen door and makes a noise almost like mewl. It’s weirdly endearing, and Eli sighs and takes a chair. “A handwritten book, Hanayo. I just need the script that Rin left with you, and you won’t ever see me again.”

An odd cooing noise starts from the back room – Nico and Ni vanish past Viridian, still holding the door with his antlers, and Eli squints in the general direction before realizing it’s a clock. It’s time for the noon rest. At the mansion, the servants will be shaking out rugs and beginning to plan for the evening meal. Alisa will be putting down her books in favor of a nap, with hearth-warmed blankets and peppermint tea, and Eli would be… doing paperwork for the Board of Governors. But there’d be birdsong and the breeze in the sheltered, private gardens instead of this God-awful pattering rain with Hanayo hiding her fear and Nico’s baleful rage.

Hanayo reaches into the pocket of her apron and hands over a ragged, copper-bound book. It looks like it’s been out in the thunderstorm, a meat grinder, and then chewed on, all at once. Eli takes it with a quiet disgust. “Don’t read it, okay?” asks the tea girl meekly, and follows Eli to the door, a wan misery still etched in the lines of her round face.

“I won’t,” _touch it again_ , thinks Eli, and slides the rectangle into an inner pocket of her jacket.

When she’s at the door, she looks back. Nico and her daemon are watching from the counter with unfathomable expressions. When Nico isn’t scowling, she’s lovely, fine thin features and luxurious lashes over deep eyes. Hanayo is trembling like the roof caving in, like the sky is falling. Like her world is crashing around her. So Eli turns without saying goodbye.

**

On the way out, she almost collides with a great bird swooping down to the tea shop. The taboo causes her to swing aside and smack her forehead into the door frame, and Thrall barks.

“Ayase Eli.”

“That’s me,” Eli says, and tries to rub her forehead without looking like she’s searching for bumps. Bruises are not good publicity for the daughter of two representatives on the Board.

Toujou Nozomi is outside the tea shop, her acute gaze focused on Thrall. Toujou’s daemon hops up onto her shoulder pad, vast wings outstretched, matching his human for intensity.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk,” says Toujou, and sticks out a hand without further ado. Eli looks down. Toujou’s nails are a startling purple, with the same slatey shine as dusk on a lake. Eli moves her eyes up past the bony wrist and the lean arm to Toujou’s coiled half smile. She looks like she’s wearing a half-mask, the rain splattering across wild strands of inky hair and shunting the whole damp mess onto her forehead. She pushes it back with the hand not being offered to Eli and smiles with bone-white teeth. “I’m–”

“Toujou Nozomi, yes,” says Eli, and grasps her in a handshake. It’s oddly formal. Thrall makes a strange noise, like choking, and Eli’s about to look down in concern when Nozomi’s daemon flaps his wings, the feathers shedding water in a spray of droplets that smack both women in the face.

Eli takes the time pulling out her handkerchief to study Nozomi covertly. This woman spluttering at her daemon and wiping splashes of rainwater from the corners of her eyes is supposed to be some sort of imposing revolutionary? Not just the leader of a movement. A memory surfaces: Maki, sneering. _Street rat._

“Was that,” Nozomi is saying to the bird, “really necessary?” She touches her wet hands to her wet ears and pouts, lower lip coming out like a child’s. It’s... bizarre, actually, to see a grown woman that isn’t Nico glower so.

“Oh, definitely,” says the daemon casually, twisting his wide face around to look nearly behind him as he shakes out his tail feathers. His voice is high and piercing to the ear – a positively fierce sound that reverberates in Eli’s skull like the clang of rock on metal.

“So, Eli,” says Nozomi, perking up again, and Eli stops patting at her perfectly dry hands with her cloth and smiles expectantly, hoping this won’t take long. “Have you heard of the new addendum to the Intercision proposal?”

Are they going to do this here? Eli glances around forlornly for help, Thrall quivering for some reason at her ankles. She’s made it approximately four feet from the front stoop of the tea house where, doubtlessly, Nico and Hanayo curse her name with their every breath. If Nozomi makes some sort of move, Eli no longer has allies. “I have not,” she says coolly, and starts walking into the rain, which has politely lightened into a faint drizzle. It’s not convenient, but it’s not unpleasant.

Apparently, they’re going to do this here. “Well, Ms. Ayase,” Nozomi says conversationally, falling into stride with Thrall, half a pace behind Eli as she quick-steps down the path towards her hire. “The new revision has something you might be interested in.”

“I’m not really interested in anything,” says Eli faintly, and walks a little faster, nondescript flats splashing in the shallow puddles still spotting the street.

“Oh?” Nozomi’s tone has _got_ to be false; just the slightest trill of amusement. “Well, a condemned criminal may now _buy_ themselves out of Intercision. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“What?” Eli asks, despite herself. She wasn’t let off from her liter far away. There are perhaps twenty meters to her hire, but her feet stop anyway. Thrall runs into her shins.

“You know,” says Nozomi, determinedly cheerful. She swings her hand through her mess of hair again, smiling clear as a star. “Just another example of how it’s getting worse and worse for people like me.” People like her. Eli blinks; crosses her arms. “It’s not right,” Nozomi prods, one brow rising. “People who are the responsibility of the Magisterium; we’re supposed to be protected and served by our governing body, Eli.”

Eli’s not sure how to handle this news. Nozomi’s eyes are back on Thrall, pondering. “What form is your daemon?” Eli asks, to avoid the subject entirely. Why is she... prolonging this?

“Porvenir?” Nozomi moves a hand up to her daemon, who clacks affectionately at her fingertips. “He’s an owl. A Great Horned Owl. They’re not native to Japan, so you’ve probably never seen a wild one.”

“He’s big,” is all Eli says.

“Yes, well,” Nozomi clacks her own teeth and gives a violent sort of smile. “We’re very close. And we’re both very, _very_ against Intercision. Which I think you could help us with.”

“No,” says Eli. “I really can’t.” She moves, faster than she’s ever hustled before, and gets a hand safely on the liter’s handle when she looks back.

Nozomi is disappointed. It’s written in the slump of her spine and the narrowed crinkle of her eyes. She grabs Eli’s gaze. “I can see the bond with your soul, you know,” she calls, and the exhaustion in her voice ruins the cryptic message.

Well, if that isn’t the weirdest thing Eli’s heard all day. Perhaps all week, and she’s had a hell of a week. She makes sure to slam the door behind her.

All of this for Rin’s stupid book.

 

**

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk Nontan

The gentle ring of silverware on crystal calls the conversations to a halt. As the Director of the Board of Foreign Affairs steps up to the podium, Eli snatches Kotori’s elbow from where she’s having a lovely chat with a young man whom Eli may or may not recognize as the son of the Chief of Law Enforcement.

“Oh! Eli? How are you?” asks Kotori, endlessly polite even as she scrapes vaguely at Eli’s grip as she’s towed into the back of the jeweled crowd. Eli sticks out another hand and scoops Maki out of a clump of future Health and Wellness Board members.

They meet up with Rin at the edges of the room nearest the buffet tables, Maki glancing uncertainly at the staff. Abraxas, Kotori’s daemon, gently shuffles aside a husky daemon with one hoof and a kindly-meant snort, prompting the uniformed servant man to jump and shuffle away towards the silvery candelabra stands, ears flushed.

“What is this, Eli?” asks Kotori as Abraxas clops back and rumbles. She strokes one curled horn with an abstract motion, eyes flickering between Maki’s crossed arms and Rin’s blank-slate face. “We’re going to miss the explorer’s speech on the creatures discovered up in Yezo. They found a gaseous formula that incapacitates cliff-ghasts, did you hear?”

“Ghasts, whatever,” says Maki impatiently, and watches Rin as she speaks. “We all know the witches in that territory hate the Magisterium explorer parties. We lost forty good men in the last expedition.”

“They made a deal with some of the _ussuri_ for safe passage through,” Kotori says. “The mining bears. They know the ancient passageways under the earth.” She twists her pearl necklace, bead by bead slipping between her bony fingers, carefully.

“That’s just a side note,” Eli says. “We can read about the discoveries in some report later. I just... wanted to talk to you all.”

“What about?” asks Rin listlessly. She looks so trim in her suit, but there’s something gaunt about the tired lines along her eyes and Fuku twined around her ankles, avoiding brushing tails with Remora. Maki is biting her lip and watching her own daemon pace.

“Do you,” Eli starts, and then shuts up. The words hunker in her throat, scratching the insides of her neck as she swallows and stops. Thrall places a forepaw with one claw extended on her shin, snagging in the sheer ice-blue fabric of her fluttering dress. He bares his teeth meaningfully. “Have you heard rumors of the Magisterium being... corrupt?”

Rin glances sidelong at Eli, a certain dryness in the motion. Kotori puts a hand to her throat, shock in the lines of her rose lips. Eli’s mouth continues to move. “There’s something sickeningly wrong here, can you feel it?”

“What do you mean by that?” Maki wants to know.

“Separating daemons and humans is heinous,” urges Eli, and she doesn’t miss how Remora inches towards Maki at that.

“You’re letting the Intercision Bill taint your seat in the ranks?” asks Kotori softly. Thrall moves towards Abraxas and leans into his woolly sides. “You were born to take your place here, among us. Whatever the problems common folk have with Intercision, you’re safe from the law. Shouldn’t you be alright with that?”

“Alright with letting people suffer?” snaps Rin, Fuku hissing at her heel. “It’s hard to call them common folk when you take meals with them and see everyone is just as human as yourself. Why were we born to privilege and they’re supposedly meant for street muck?”

“Hey,” says Kotori, hands out. Eli glances at the shifting crowd, listening to the explorer and standing in their expensive outfits, pampered hands edging at the stems of crystal goblets. “Let’s tone it down. I never said we weren’t all human. Everyone’s got a daemon, haven’t we?” continues Kotori, and holds Rin’s shoulders with her particular brand of tranquility. Fuku crawls over to sit with Abraxas and Thrall. Remora watches them with a studied, golden indifference.

“Magisterium is what we were born to do,” Maki intercedes, and twists a finger into her hair, forming a classically perfect curl. “Why do you question things like daemon forms and consequence?”

“I’m not questioning,” Eli says stiffly. She can feel her lie, same as the sensation of drinking the crisp scarlet liquor served at these ridiculous parties.

“We’re condoning the separation of souls, just because it doesn’t affect us?” Rin explodes in a whisper. The closest tuxedoed couple of men at the back of the absorbed crowd of Magisterium directors give the small crew of heiresses a look. Hushing herself slightly and pulling in closer to Kotori, she adds, “We’re the people who have the power and will to stop it, but we haven’t. That’s true evil if I’ve ever heard it.”

“What do you know of evil?” Maki says bitterly, and runs a palm-open hand through her hair, lingering at the amethysts binding her half-ponytail. Remora growls.

**

The days leading to the court proceedings for the Intercision Bill is marked by a handful of riots, fires, and lootings spread across the lower city section, and the near-assassination of a Law Board member’s daemon. Eli reads the newspapers at breakfast, but her hands shake and Thrall finally eats the front page before she can read it. “To spare you the stress,” he says around her as she pulls scraps of words from his fangs. “You don’t need any more of that.”

The Bill passes through the Board of Law, a unanimous vote. The first victim of Intercision is a young man, twenty four. Eli isn’t sure what he’d done, but she asks for an available witch to procure a scrying glass to see the event. She watches with Thrall peering over the lip of the bowl through the shifting oil colors. The man, escorted by two guards and hunting dog daemons, ascends the shiny new steps in the Intercision chamber, built into the basement of the jailhouse with a swift wave of money changing hands. He’s holding his clean, white rat daemon to his heart. She’s chittering and shaking, and his eyes are flashing around the spotless chrome room. Jailers prod him into a chamber, guns at hips and black helmets covering the upper halves of their faces. Eli wishes she could see their expressions. Are they horrified at what they’re about to do?

There’s no sound in a scrying glass. The technician moves his lips and the guards tighten the bonds around the victim’s wrists, binding him with metal like an animal in line for slaughter at the barnyard. He’s started thrashing now. One of the jailer’s daemons clamps her jaws around the rat and drags her into the adjacent chamber. Eli can’t look away from the dangling blade - it’s an old-fashioned guillotine, the slanted silver edge glittering with the surgical lights. The man is rocking in his cuffs, bruising himself on the metal, mouth stuttering the same motions over and over. She knows it’s the name of his daemon.

Then the blade comes down and the light dissolves from his eyes.

**

 She’s staring out the huge French windows of the fifth floor that overlook the entire grounds, Thrall on her lap feeding on her heartbeat when a maid knocks and says the Ayase parents have returned.

 Eli trudges down the flights, stockinged feet banging much too loudly on the sumptuous woodwork. She meets Alisa halfway on second floor with Diamanté. They walk the rest of the way together. “Good afternoon,” says Father from the foyer, and hands off his cloak to the butler, who is already holding Mother’s gloves. “We’ve left presents for you and your sister in the sitting room with the housekeeper.”

 “Alisa, come here,” commands Mother. The cobra on her shoulders pierces Eli’s little sister with her crimson eyes. Eli makes her way to the East Wing sitting room by herself.

 The housekeeper is a lithe little woman in uniform, a spotted terrier sitting politely at the end of a coffee table while she moves wrapped packages into a neat pyramid. She looks up when Eli enters. “Ah, here’s the young Mistress now. This’ll be Ayase Eli.”

 Eli’s about to say she’s aware of herself, but then almost falls over when she notices Toujou Nozomi and her owl daemon peering curiously from the armchair before the mantel. “You can’t be sitting when the Mistress is in the room,” hisses the housekeeper, and Toujou rises with a wobbly sort of grace.

 “My name is Toujou Nozomi,” she says, because she’s a cheeky sort. The owl hoots, and it sounds like laughter.

 “How did you get here?” Eli snarls under her breath, but smiles and shakes the offered hand professionally.

 “Faked a resume for your parents,” Nozomi replies cheerfully. Louder, she adds, “Your parents decided you could use a personal assistant since your initiation is coming up and your workload is doubtlessly going to double, maybe even triple, soon. I’m here to help.”

 Eli gazes steadily at her. The housekeeper claps her hands, still focused on the pile of gifts. “Oh good, the Master and Mistress found a replacement crystal swan for the one on third floor. That silly kitchen girl, I don’t know _what_ she was doing in the North Wing...”

 “Do you like your present?” Nozomi dares, and Eli has to take a deep breath.

 Why her?

 **

 “What am I supposed to do with a personal assistant?”

 “Put me to work, I suppose,” says Nozomi silkily. Porvenir coughs, clacking his beak and shuffling his wingspan obnoxiously. Eli drags her hands down her face, digging her nails in.

 “I don’t have any responsibilities currently,” she says, and it sounds dangerously close to complaining.

They’re in the library - it is quickly turning into Eli’s favorite room in the house, just sitting in silence with her sister and their daemons as Alisa does her schoolwork the tutor assigns and Eli files paperwork and signs on the dotted lines, again and again and again. There’s something cozy about the thick, padded armchairs and luxurious rugs. The comfort provided by the heirloom tapestries is, however, rapidly vanishing under Nozomi’s curious observation.

“What’s this one?” she asks, and plucks a centuries-old book from the Ancient Classics shelf. Eli holds back a squeak as Nozomi’s long fingers rifle through the leaflike pages casually. “Oh wow, it’s in a weird language.”

“Put that back,” Eli says without moving her lips. Porvenir flaps over and perches on a gold-wrought standing lamp. This is chaos, somehow. What is this street rat woman doing in her house? “How did you get here?”

“I already told you, Eli,” Nozomi replies, and sets down the book, only to grab at another, dust spilling from its pages. Thrall slinks around Eli’s heels. He seems nervous, ears pressed flat to his skull, whiskers twitching. “I have many talents. Fooling employers is one of them.” She smiles impishly, all lovely dimples and charm.

This does not fool Eli. “How did you find my family’s lands?” She takes a calculated half step so she’s facing the street woman across the gilded table.

“I followed your soul bond,” explains Nozomi vaguely, and raises an arm. Porvenir soars over noiselessly, and Eli refuses to be impressed by the great wingspan and imposing brows on that bird. Finally Nozomi deigns to look Eli in the eye. “I’m the daughter of a son of a witch. I don’t have magic abilities proper, just weird little side things.”

Eli’s eyes almost pop out of her head. She sweeps an arm over herself, rubbing at her shoulder, covering her heart. “I, what?’

“It’s odd,” says Nozomi, frowning, and the impertinent woman takes a seat in a wingback chair without asking permission, her daemon hopping to the twisted claw armrest. “Magic only travels along the female line, so my father had - well, he had nothing. And then I was born with Sight.”

“Which is what?” Eli says, curious despite herself, and Thrall wraps his tail around her legs, coarse fur like a bristling burr on skin.

“I can see the links between human and daemon,” hums Nozomi. She puts her hands under her chin and leans close to Porvenir. “Color of your soul. Strength of feeling and intimacy and it’s all in a beautiful, direct line.” Her eyes flick to Eli’s. “I saw your fox daemon at the demonstration, along with that redhead’s panther. I figured out who you were after I followed the blue bond all the way to the liter you were getting into.”

“Why are you here?” Should she be afraid for her life? Toujou is a bit shorter, but maybe she’s been trained in combat. Certainly there aren’t any overt weapons on her person. In all honesty, Eli doesn’t read intimidation from the woman lounging bonelessly in the armchair, legs up the finely embroidered sides. She looks at Thrall for a better clue of how she’s supposed to be feeling, but her soul is silent. A touch of confusion slips in through their bond, and then Eli is embarrassed because apparently Nozomi can see that.

  
“I’m here because you’re the heir to the face of the Magisterium,” Nozomi says, and finally Eli has the woman serious. “When you take your position as Director of the Board of Governors in six weeks, you will effectively rule the Magisterium.” 

“Untrue,” retorts Eli coldly. “My power derives from the cooperation of other Board Directors and the Official Council.”

“But you’ll have real powers to shut down other Boards,” says Porvenir impatiently in his high voice. Eli is unused to daemons speaking for their humans - she pauses, and the owl takes the silence. “Don’t pretend. You’ve got influence, privileged, and powerful friends. You _know_ you can change things.”

“I’m going to call security on you and your lying urchin human,” Eli says darkly, and starts to cross the room.

“You can stop the madness in the streets you dislike so much,” says Nozomi, fists tight on her knees. “Hate the commoners if you want, noble Ayase, but we’re your charges, whether you wish to take responsibility or not.”

She’s right. She’s so many layers of right that Eli feels it coating her mouth, her lips, and her throat like the taste of terror. God, she’s just trying to fulfill her destiny conflict-free, but this part-witch has such gleaming surety in her sea-green eyes. What is the world coming to? Why can’t Eli and Thrall just... be? “I wasn’t born to be noble in the truest sense of the word,” she says shamefully, and Thrall winces at the emotion vibrating through the bond. “My duty is to obey and keep the system running. I’m meant to be another slave, Nozomi. I’m good at it.”

Nozomi tilts her head, looking much like her owl as they survey Eli and Thrall, two foxes hanging their heads from cement guilt. “Eli,” she says slowly, royal-purple fingertips at her mouth, “You can be _anything_.”

**

Having Nozomi around certainly changes things.

“That entire block used to be residential,” says Eli’s assistant nonchalantly, and Porvenir waves a wing for her out the side of the hired sedan. They’re trundling to the minor law offices in the industrial sectors to pick up some transcripts, and Nozomi knows so much about the streets. Eli, squished on a cushion in a space technically meant for one human and a mid-sized daemon, tries to look out the window past Nozomi’s cheek without brushing Porvenir. There’s no seeing around the gauzy privacy curtains or Nozomi’s smooth cheekbones, though, so Eli uncomfortably settles herself back into her cramped corner, shoulders smashed into the decorative carvings on the inside of the transport, Thrall on her lap.

 “The construction and city interface officials tore down some old housing units on that side of the street to make room for an open-air fish market,” Nozomi continues, “But it didn’t take off because the vendors really stay closer to the coast. So now it’s just a pile of dirt and broken glass, and a thieving den.” She’s bitter, and understandably so, Eli thinks.

 “Why did they do that, then?”

 Nozomi shrugs, a careful rolling motion that swings her dusky twintails into Eli’s sides. “The Magisterium wanted it, I guess.”

 Problems like this are everywhere, now that Nozomi’s around to point them out. It’s exhausting, having her blinders so removed. Eli tries to look past the hazy curtain on her side of the hire, and sees two street children watching the liter go by, rodent daemons against their hearts.

 **

 “Orphans?” asks Nozomi.

 “Orphans,” says Eli clearly. Thrall makes a barking laugh.

Outside, the building is drab, cement and steel rafters rising into the sky like a particularly twisted thumb sticking out from the surrounding edifices.

Eli’s never been able to visit places like this - her parents, beyond flatly forbidding her from stepping foot away from reputable areas in the common portions of populous cities, have also been quite strict on limiting her public appearances. However, with her initiation to the Magisterium looming ever closer, they’ve given her permission to take her personal assistant to a Magisterium orphanage not too far from the merchant’s district. All for good publicity towards the future Board Director, of course.

Children are _rowdy_. They’re all clad in the same austere, pale outfit; it’s a bit like a shapeless tunic and pants that weather both childlike combat and growing pains. Eli and Nozomi (and a few reporters with nothing else to do that day) are escorted into the main playroom, where seventeen children ranged ages six to fifteen are scrambling with cardboard boxes and grubby wooden soldiers.

Eli hasn’t heard a child yell almost her whole life - if a young heir was being raucous at social conventions, a nanny would inevitably scoop them away, and amiable chit chat would continue. In her world, anyone over four was polite and silent until spoken to, their daemons controlled and expressionless.

These children dart and bellow at each other, daemons shifting into wild cats and wolves and birds as they jump and holler. Eli feels herself shrinking. One child with fine black hair uses a blanket to bat at another child’s daemon, a kingfisher that morphs into a bear, thudding to the floor with a roar and rearing on stumpy legs. More kids shriek, and a wolverine leaps from the side of another orphan to knock over the grizzly.

“Children,” snaps the matron, and the orphans kind of stumble themselves into a parody of silence, daemon tails still swishing and beaks still clicking at one another. “This is the future Director of the Board of Governments, from the Magisterium.” She pauses. The children, several of them with bruised faces from their games, eye her sullenly. “The Magisterium keeps you fed and clothed. Come thank her at once.”

Eli feels her eye threaten to twitch as the orphans, curious-eyed to the last and frisky daemons excited, line around her to offer thanks. What should she do? She casts a pleading side-eye at Nozomi, Porvenir on her shoulder.

At once Nozomi tosses her arms out and yells, “MOB!” Eli has perhaps a second of bemusement before Nozomi throws herself around Eli’s legs and takes her down. Porvenir flaps from her and swishes his wings at an orphan’s mouse daemon, which changes at once into a polecat and leaps. Eli’s suddenly in a pile of children, Thrall snapping eagerly at a crowd of changing daemons that phase and flick into a hundred different animals.

The matron rolls her eyes, but the reporters are scribbling madly.

**

The maid has kicked Eli and Alisa out from the library while intense dusting occurs behind closed doors.

Nozomi, the new constant presence in the mansion, suggests a walk in the grounds. Alisa and Diamanté are somewhat less than enthused at the prospect, and Eli isn’t sure which footwear is the most appropriate, so the three of them end up in Eli’s sitting room off her bedroom chambers.

“She loves her daemon very much,” Nozomi whispers into Eli’s ear as Alisa takes a lap around the room, peering into shelves and at the backgrounds of paintings. The sisters haven’t spent time in each other’s wings for... years? Eli looks at Nozomi’s fingers curled around her wrist and tries to think.

“Want to do a fortune reading?” Nozomi scoots away from Eli on the couch and Alisa comes back, eyes bright with interest.

“What’s that?” she reaches for Nozomi’s strange deck of cards, then pulls back. Each card has a glistening crosshatch of shining silver lines across the back, an entrancing spider web of light.

“My grandmother gave me these,” says Nozomi with a wink at Eli, running the glittering cards through her hands. It’s not magic, just deftness. Thrall lets out an involuntary _burr_ noise. “Would you like to know your future, Ayase Alisa?”

“Oh, no,” says Alisa, and covers her mouth with her hands, blushing. “They’re so pretty. And... I don’t know if my future is, um, worth knowing.” Diamanté nudges her with his nose, shaking out his golden fur.

“Nonsense,” Eli interjects.

“No, it’s alright,” says Nozomi. “How about you Eli, want to hear your future?”

“I already know it,” Eli says, sounding more morose than intended. Nozomi’s gaze flickers up, then down to her cards.

“Okay. I’ll do your past, then.”

“How-”

“Sh, it’s started,” says Nozomi. Porvenir wobbles on her shoulder, leaning his wide face in as she splays the sparkling deck along the table and starts flipping.

“What do those mean?” asks Alisa, pointing at the spread of three cards Nozomi twists with her wrist. The face sides are not the usual symbols of hearts, numbers, and clubs - instead they are twining coils of scarlet and gold lines, graceful loops of infinity patterns arched into a chaotic mosaic that pulls Eli’s eyes deep into the layers of turns. They’re _beautiful_.

“This is magic,” says Nozomi simply, and reaches for Eli’s hand. When they touch, a small barb of static runs through their fingers. “Here’s your past.” The first card is two narrowing crimson lines edged in gold, flourished into a sort of heart formation. “Born to greatness.”

“Well, yes,” says Eli, trying to ignore the sweat at the back of her neck. “That’ll be my fate in the Magisterium. Thrall’s final form confirmed that.” Nozomi’s still clamped around her hand.

The second card has lines like a Celtic Knot. “You’ve lost something close to your heart. Not a person, but...” Nozomi squints into the whirls of red and gold. “A legacy. Something you loved, but failed.”

Alisa still has a hand clapped to her mouth, but Diamanté coughs a low laugh. “Eli,” he says for her, “have you shown Nozomi the portraits?”

“Portraits?” Nozomi ask mildly. She’s very still. Eli has an idea that she’s being very patient for... something?

“I did Classical Art,” admits Eli. “Ballet.” It was a long time ago. She can remember the burn of arcing her legs, the pride in striking a perfect form. Something that kindled a spark inside the hinges of her tired heart. Something that wasn’t Magisterium. “There are portraits of me from that time in my private rooms.”

“May I see?” Nozomi inquires delicately. Porvenir fixes Eli with a fierce stare.

“No.” She shakes her head, loose gold hair across her shoulders. “There’s a reason you’re reading that in my past and not my future. Or present.”

Nozomi turns the last card towards Eli. “This one is just... you. It says coldness, strictness. Exhaustion from work, efficiency, and dependability. Privilege. But it’s gilded with hope.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means...” Alisa and Eli lean into Nozomi’s muted tone. It’s gentle, like the subtle touch of snowflakes on the earth. “It means you can do anything, Ayase Eli.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Put down that newspaper and come listen to this,” Nozomi intones.

Unlike other noble daughters, neither Alisa nor Eli find it strange that the servant is ordering the master – on the contrary: Eli straightens at once and crosses the dining room with Thrall bounding along the long table’s edge, curiosity humming through their mind. Alisa comes too after waving out the other servants with dirty plates piled high, Diamanté padding swiftly, tag beating her shins.

 Eli hands off her paper to Porvenir, who grabs the rolled paper in his beak and starts snipping it to bits, strips of parchment curling apart under his rough treatment. “Someone will have to clean that up,” says Alisa, and Nozomi shushes everyone and puts her hands back to the knobs of the radio, nails clicking.

“ _The Head of Magisterium, upon seeing the numbers for the recent Intercision Law of national infamy, has declared the procedures a success and publically recognizes the efforts of all who incorporated_ -“

“Ah,” says Eli, thinking of the way the man and his rat daemon had jerked when the blade came down, like their bones had been jolted apart. A success. Thrall presses into the backs of her knees, hungry for reassurance.

“ _The gracious Head had also announced favor for the newest proposal of labor division – in order to better abide by the whims of fate, citizens will be categorized for labor according to their daemons–”_

Alisa flinches heavily as ice fills the room, and Nozomi, who’s been looking at Thrall, reaches almost unconsciously for Porvenir, who bites her fingertips nervously, flicking his wings out.

Eli puts her hands to her mouth. “A draft? Where… where does that place us?”

“Not just us, Eli,” says Nozomi slowly, the words pulled like splinters from between her teeth. “The entire country will be flipped from this – people with top-tier predator daemons will be drafted into the military. People with smaller household daemons will be relegated to legal servitude. Sturdier souls could be sent to the mines, or the fields. It’s… legal slavery.” She moves erratically, hands at her waist and then the ends of her waterfall hair, tongue twisting and eyes darting as she paces. “How could the Magisterium push this through without alerting the public and the Board of Law? I’ve got to get the team back together – how could I have… taken a break… especially now?” Eli feels compelled to reach for Nozomi, maybe a hug? What’s the etiquette for a woman falling apart in front of you? Nozomi scratches at her shoulders and blinks back tears, leaving Eli silent and half-frozen in a motion to comfort her. Eli’s hands are almost touching Porvenir – she takes an awkward step backwards and almost collides with Alisa.

“This makes me nothing,” whispers Eli’s little sister. “More nothing than I was before.” Alisa spins and tears from the room, Diamanté at her heels barking furiously, the noise echoing through the massive, foreboding mansion like thunder in the night.

Eli feels so useless – she rocks forward to follow Alisa, but Thrall is moving towards Porvenir, and her insides slash against themselves for a moment before she turns back towards Nozomi, who stands tucked away into her own body. “Nozomi?”

The part-witch slides to the floor blankly, and Eli tries to stop, but then she’s on her knees and has both arms around Nozomi. Thrall crawls to Porvenir, drooping on the ground, and lays his head against the owl’s wings. They’re all crying, all four of them who are really just two people who have seen the beginning of the end.

Eli’s mind stumbles into thoughts but they shatter into silver bits – Nozomi is warm, and the sensation of the quiet tremble of her shoulders into Eli’s chest and the soft drag of her cascading hair along Eli’s hands is unnervingly comfortable. After a few minutes, Nozomi rearranges them easily, leaning their backs against a near wall and curling her fingers into Eli’s. Porvenir, a wing draped over Thrall, shuffles so his back is to them.

“Nozomi,” Eli begins carefully, idly pressing her nails to the other woman’s palm, “I’ve… thought about what you told me.” Silence. She clears her throat, and Nozomi lays her cheek against Eli’s collarbone with a studied calmness that almost chokes them both. “I want to change things. But I… I don’t know if I can, really. I have all this authority, but if I make one wrong move it will destroy lives. Besides, my whole life has been Magisterium. Do I even have anything else to my soul beyond that loyalty? That drive?”

“Lives are already being destroyed,” says Nozomi. Eli has a horrible mental image – what if the staff waltzes in and sees the young mistress bowed on the floor around her pretty personal assistant? Their _souls_ are over there, _touching_. She can, by extension, feel Porvenir’s silken feathers on Thrall’s back. It tickles.

Why doesn’t this picture bother her more?

“You are so strong,” Nozomi continues, unaware. “I wish… I wish you’d think about yourself more. Take care of yourself, see yourself the way… the way I do. See that you can definitely change the world.” Her voice slips down a tone. “Our world.”

_Oh no_ , thinks Eli, because she has realized what she’s feeling at this exact second, and it’s really quite unfair.

Nozomi’s moving in for a kiss at the same time Porvenir is ramming his head lazily into Thrall’s side, and Eli’s soul is near _purring_ at the connection. Eli leaps to her feet, bare toes hitting the delicate woodwork of the radio stand, and Thrall yips in pain for her.

Disgustingly unfair. It’s out of hatred for herself that Eli splutters, “You’re fired, Nozomi,” and makes her escape, pulling a protesting Thrall by sheer force of the bond.

**

“Yes, she’s gone,” Eli says into the phone, and Maki nearly spits on the other end.

“Well, where did she _go?_ ”

“I wouldn’t know,” Eli replies, a tad impatiently, and twines the cord around her wrist, wondering if it would stretch along her skin. “Rin hasn’t been off of her family’s lands for weeks, and now she’s disappeared without a trace.” Maki makes a noise quite reminiscent of her daemon. Speaking of: Thrall is very upset with Eli. He’s standing down the hall, furry tail stiff with rage, reaching as far as the bond will permit.

“Was it a kidnapping or what?” Maki demands in a voice like glass, bringing Eli back. “The heir to the Otonokizaka Cooperation can’t. Just. Vanish. It’s impossible on maybe thirty different levels.”

“I don’t know,” says Eli, rubbing her eyes. Nozomi’s sweet, round face is flashing behind her gaze when she blinks. Again.  “She wasn’t happy, Maki. We both know it.”

“Yes,” admits Maki, and Eli can imagine the violent hair twirling occurring on the other end. “But honestly? I thought she’d stow it and get on with doing her duty.”

“Not everyone is like us.”

After she’s hung up the phone, Eli tries to cajole Thrall into coming back. He whisks his tail side to side and ignores her efforts. “She believed in you, and you betrayed her.”

“It wasn’t as bad as all that,” Eli whispers as they pad down the hallway together. “Besides, she needed to get back to the streets. She said so herself. Nozomi was only here for… to try and convince me to mess with the laws she hates so much.”

“You hate them too,” says Thrall accusingly, little paws catching in the carpet as he kneads with his claws. “Can’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” says Eli, who is.

Thrall waits until they’re outside the library door before he darts forward and bites Eli’s exposed ankle. She jumps, not wanting to make a sound in case Alisa, who has been fleeing the entire family’s presence for days, is inside. “We fell in love with her.”

Eli flushes and rubs at her skin, seeing Nozomi before her again; head bowed as she grasped her cloak in both hands and departed from the Ayase lands in a cloud of flimsy rain. Before she can organize her tangled tongue, Thrall says, “Things around the Magisterium are disintegrating. It’s our _duty_ to fix them, for us, and for people like her. Else, what are we truly good for?”

**

It is again the radio that brings Eli the real news, rather than her flimsy newspaper, and she is beginning the feel the weight of new technology broadening her life. Rin’s fancy riding machine, for one. The radio is relatively new, as is the marvelous communication by telephone lines, and the witches say there will soon be wonders the Magisterium has not yet seen. Maybe someday Eli will be able to fly to the North, or even the East, without fear of the merpeople and other, stranger sea-swelling magics.

Alisa has gone with the elder Ayases to the Law offices to purchase the paperwork that will buy her out of her servitude. Under the new law, even if she steps no toes out of line to be cut under Intercision, her fate is still one of wait staff or maid. The Ayases cannot have their backup heir in such a shameful position, so naturally she must be restored. This leaves Eli as alone as can be in a household full of servants.

Of course, Eli is never alone when her soul walks beside her. Thrall has not quite forgiven Eli the insult to Nozomi, but he allows her to cuddle him as she walks by the dining room and hears the radio being tampered with by some of the kitchen staff.

She pokes her head in. The head chef and some of the assistants are gathered about, listening to the tinny voice and adjusting the fine crystal tuner with work-roughened hands.

The radio says, “And Minami Kotori, the Director’s daughter, is set to be initiated as soon as the ink has dried on those papers.” It’s some sort of talk show? Eli steps in farther, Thrall in her arms, and listens behind her servants.

Another voice responds to the first: “Given the Director’s critical condition, I’d say the newest Minami on the Board had better be ready to take full control. It’s not every day that a woman can recover from such a severe street attack – and that bludgeon to the head? Director Minami isn’t young. We’ll see how she gets along, although until then, Board Member Kotori will doubtlessly do her best. The Ministry of Education will probably be whipped back into shape.”

“Or be taken down a new path entirely,” adds the first voice. Eli makes a strangled sort of gasp, and her staff notices her. They flee at once, wordlessly, afraid at being caught off-work, and Eli wonders how her parents would punish them.

**

The Nishikino lands are less sprawling than the Ayase territory, though there’s something undeniably sleek about the aggressively contained lawn and blooming gardens full of rare and colorful floral arrangements. Eli and Thrall pace just beside Maki and Remora, barely fitting all four in a row along the paved, winding pathway. Thrall thinks they seem like soldiers in their lines.

Maki’s the one who suggested a spring stroll, but her tight shoulders and distant gaze don’t seem much for conversation. Eli stops to pick a rose, rolling the thorned stem through her fingers as Thrall sniffs appreciatively. Remora pads elegantly, indifferently, unimpressed at the beauty of blooms and sky spread out for the heiresses like the world is begging to please.

When they end up wandering back into the mansion in silence, Eli’s beginning to think Maki just wanted company rather than a talk about Magisterium goals, like she’d been hinting. Maki’s personal chambers are not as somber as some might expect – Eli is fully prepared for mature minimalism, possibly in an adult indigo hue, but the riot of lavender and pastel prettiness springs against the eyes in a forcefully girlish manner that cannot be ignored.

Remora leads the way, heading at once for the cushioned corner where he flops down, sides rising and falling steadily as he continues his mute observation of the guests while Maki makes a beeline for her personal desk and flips over a few papers lying abandoned and scratched on the glossed surface. Not much is faster than Thrall’s senses, though, and he thinks to Eli, _those are draft exclusion proposals_. Maki is buying herself out of subjection.

Eli accepts an ivory cup of tea and gives herself permission to take an armchair across from where Remora blinks heavily. The two women and their souls cohabitate wordlessly for several minutes, Maki leaning with palms splayed along her desk and Eli sipping patiently. She keeps seeing Nozomi’s lips saying, _you can_ , and it’s started a dull ache somewhere around her ribcage like week-old whacks from a sledgehammer when Maki finally clears her throat with awkward vigor.

“So, Ayase Eli. I suppose you’ve heard about Kotori?”

“Yes,” she replies simply.

“Who would have thought we’d be moving up in the world like this?” asks Maki, and starts to pace, leopard-lithe as her daemon. Her hands clench and open, scraping at air, tendons outlined hard against her arms. “That she’d be Director before she was twenty five? And all it took was an insurrectionist attack?”

“Maki,” says Eli, watching her old friend shake into pieces. “Do you not feel safe?”

“Yes. No? No,” she repeats, and stalks over to Remora and takes a seat on the floor like a child, a hand on her daemon’s back. “I should. I’m probably the safest of all the line to the Board of Health. I just don’t… I feel like I’m trotted out like some glass doll with _perfect_ notes in academics and all of this _promise_ and training, but now I’m just in my cabinet for safekeeping until it’s my time, not even allowed to touch the piano, when my music–” She bites her lip. “Rin felt imprisoned, and she’s gone. I know the sensation now, and I can’t even talk to her about it.”

Maki twists her head to the side rather than let Eli see the weakness of tears, but Eli creeps forward all the same, letting Thrall fall back while she takes the hand of the other heiress, and they sit in silence together, feeling the cold of the space still between them.

When Remora speaks, Thrall jumps. “The Magisterium has done this to us.” His tail is like a heartbeat, pounding the rug rhythmically. “This fear was never there for our kind, but now that the commoners have risen, they remind us of the terror they live in. Rin, Kotori’s mother… they may be alive, or they may yet die. This is something that has never occurred to us.”

“Never,” says Maki bitterly. “And now I feel as though our necks are exposed and ready for a witch’s arrow to be loosed–”

“ –we may sympathize and help bring about change,” Remora hums, shocking Maki.

“You’re not going to blame them for the attacks on our people?” Thrall wants to know. “The only reason we’re aware of this anxiety is because they have moved against the nobility.”

“They’re trying to rewrite the world laws,” Remora agrees smoothly. “But now that we can see the lines of fate that divide us, who are we to say they were drawn by the universe? Maybe the partitions that make us and them have been created by all of us together.”

“And we can redraw any lines,” Eli urges, and grips tighter to Maki, who looks unsure at the things her daemon is declaring. “Maki, that’s it. Between you, me, and Kotori, we can do things in the Magisterium. Someone, ah, someone told me that we have authority, but most of all _potential_. I’ve been groomed to take power – with us and maybe Rin, the entire legacy of terror can be supplanted.”

“At the tea shop,” says Maki gruffly, “Much of the merchant’s district was able to pay themselves out of the Daemon Draft, and Hanayo lent the payment for Nico, thought it nearly beggared the house. I… I donated to keep Hanayo free. And luckily nobody’s been cut yet, but Nico’s youngest siblings weren’t so lucky. They were sent to the fields with other poverty-stricken people with small-bird souls.”

Eli’s stomach drops like the swoop of earth dissolving by her feet. Children in the fields? “You didn’t pay for them?”

“Did you?”

She shakes out her head, letting the ragged guilt stream down her cheeks. There again, always, _always_ the war between what is right and what is expected. “Maki, please. We need to unite. We need to be ready to do our true duty for the people, not for the Magisterium.”

There’s an awful, hungry pause – Remora and Thrall are statues of beasts; Eli is a girl made of dust, about to be blown to bits by the winter in Maki’s eyes – and then her childhood friend crumbles forward and backward, wincing. “I’ll do whatever it takes to stand by you. For Rin.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's happening

Kotori puts her hands up to the smooth pane of the window and furrows her brow at the building across the way, slim jaw strained as she chews on the inside of her cheek. Abraxas, thick legs piled beneath his wooly overcoat, flares his nostrils and watches with Eli and Thrall as the new Director takes in the scene, thinking. Pondering. Still as a songbird marked as prey.

“Ah,” says Eli when the silence has stretched to a breaking point, a wire of cooled glass that she shatters with the only the most careful of touches, “Your opinions, Kotori. On the Draft.” She coughs, awkwardly, and Thrall thinks patience and determination at her.

“I’m not at leisure to have opinions,” Kotori says finally, and Abraxas tilts his shaggy head back to glance at her through the tufts that conceal his eyes. “The Magisterium creates its own laws – as the upper class, we have a responsibility to uphold the peace.”

“You’re parroting,” Abraxas says, and Eli thinks there might be a hint of edginess in his voice.

“I’m not,” Kotori responds lightly, though two spots of the palest pink have risen on her lovely cheekbones. “Listen, Eli. I appreciate you taking this – this campaign, is it? – to me, but I’ve got hundreds of new responsibilities as a Director –the country depends on me to provide excellent education for the new minds of tomorrow. I’m buried in studies and lesson plans and general childish shenanigans.”

Thrall has struck out from Eli’s side. Creeping over to Abraxas, he sits rather closely and peers into the bushy mass of woolen overcoat, trying to meet the ram’s gaze. Kotori, eyes on her sumptuously carved desk and the pile of papers amassed there, stands in a way that suggests she’s focused on her daemon; tense stance and something internal to her stare. “I can’t… I can’t jeopardize my duty to the children.”

“The very same children that are being sent to the fields and the mines,” says Eli, ruthless in her recruitment attempt. She _needs_ Kotori to see that the Magisterium has betrayed them. “The moment their daemons settle, the same young souls that you carefully educated will be dropped into dangerous, crippling work camps and told it’s their fate to burn out their bodies for the greater good, all for the sins of having a different shape of soul.”

Kotori blanches, but Thrall continues the verbal assault. “They’re going to waste away, forced into labor like that.”

“The Magisterium won’t let them _die_ ,” objects Abraxas, and rises unsteadily to his hooves, clearly upset. “They’re well paid, and well taken care for. It’s just the careers that they’re given. They can choose to not work instead.”

“Choose to not work,” says Eli coldly. “And how will they purchase food? Clothing? They might apply for a different work, and be rejected due to the Draft and other prejudices.” Suddenly sidetracked, she turns back to Kotori. “You could start a program, actually, when they’re young. Something that impresses the message onto the small child mind that daemon form doesn’t mean everything about a person. It’s all about their potential, and the way they grow.”

 _We were talking of the Draft_ , Thrall reminds her in their mind, _but that’s a good idea. Bottom-up processing, as it were_. Eli resists the urge to smile. One step at a time.

“I understand what you’re saying, Eli,” protests Kotori, and motions for Eli to take a seat. Thrall is still very close to Abraxas, but the ram doesn’t push him away. Eli flings herself into the antique twelfth century-style armchair, hating the constricting feel of the armrests, and composes her face into an expression that suggests reasonable discourse. “But perhaps it’s for the best?”

“What best?”

“The idea that…” Kotori hesitates. “That until they have to make a choice that like, they’ll be safe in my schools. They’ll learn, they’ll reach their heights –“

“And get sold to the _ussuri_ if they happen to have a mole daemon? Be realistic, Kotori.”

“I…”

“I’m going to be inducted onto the Governing Board,” Eli interrupts. “When I settle in, the first movement will be to do away with Intercision – the second will be to strike down the Draft. The third will be to restrict Magisterium power within common spheres. I’ll give back to the people.”

“How bold,” says Abraxas in Kotori’s silence, a touch of sardonic amusement in the manner that he lifts his front hooves and snorts. But Eli’s thrilled herself with her own announcements – _this_ is what Nozomi would want. This is what will save citizens’ hearts and souls – if she’s meant to rule, she’s going to do it in a way that promotes freedom!

She’s lifted herself out of the chair in her excitement, carried up in a wave of indulgent self-appreciation. Kotori clears her throat and looks down over the top of her glasses, storm-cloud hair coiled in angsty indecision about her pale face.   
  
“How, Eli?” she says softly. “How do you think you can change our world?”

“I have the power,” Eli shoots, and Thrall settles against Abraxas. The twinge as their souls touch causes both women to blink, but Eli continues, “And I believe in this, Kotori, I really do. With you and Maki and Rin, we can turn the entire Magisterium around. We can give your children futures worth their education – worth their lives, Kotori.”

“I’ll… make no promises. But I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” Eli says, and feels the seal of their pact, perhaps binding, perhaps not. _Try_ only goes so far, and she’s here to make a change.

**

“Ayase Eli?”

“Speaking,” hums Eli from her work desk, intelligences spread before her, and Thrall slides out from her feet to give the aide a once-over with his quick judgement. She closes her lids and watches from his gaze – the aide picks at her tufted bun where a red-breasted robin perches. The other hand has purple-painted nails that dig into a packet of yellow-stamped sheets – new reports. Eli, ignoring the brief stab of memory the nail polish gives her, takes pity on the nervous assistant and dismisses her after addressing the urgent accounts.

Another secretary pokes his head into her office as she’s absorbing the news from the papers. “Ma’am. A queen from the local witch clan, here to see you.”

Eli falters, pen halfway through a signature on the bottom of a page. A witch. Could it be…? She swallows, dry air caught like clay in her throat. “Send her in, if you please.” Nozomi’s not a witch, though. Just a girl. A special girl, but human nonetheless. Silly for Eli to get her hopes up. There’s a country to run, soon.

“Right away, madam.”

Eli looks out the windows at the drab clouds that sweep the tired sky. If only there was sunlight! If only her office wasn’t cluttered and dark. But she doesn’t have time to waste with internal decoration, especially with induction looming ever closer. Biting her lip, she finishes the signature with a looping, classically perfect character that could have been printed by a machine rather than her hand, and starts on a re-review of the fine print, just in case. At the door, a woman clears her throat.

“My name is Kira Tsubasa.”

Eli gestures the woman in, standing as she does so. It won’t do to show rudeness to royalty, especially a magical one. Tsubasa glides – walks, actually, but so smoothly she may as well have been airborne – to the guest chairs before Eli’s administrative table and sits so primly she could be in a painting.

Risking a quiet sigh, Eli takes her own chair and tilts her chin up. Tsubasa has clever eyes – not just intelligent, but something wicked and deep within the fractured pupils that makes Eli want to appear stronger, more worthy – like she could stand beside a queen of witches and be every bit as deadly.

Thrall rubs his ears against the legs of Eli’s desk and gnaws worriedly at his delicate claws – Kira Tsubasa is a witch. Kira Tsubasa has no daemon, and it’s as disturbing as if she’s strolling about, headless. Witches walk without present souls, and although Eli’s been among them before and knows how crude curiosity is, it’s still unsettling. A human without a soul is not natural.

“Ayase Eli,” she says by way of greeting, and Tsubasa smiles in a manner that captures both a precursor to respect and slight distain.

“So you’re the future Majesty of the Magisterium,” the witch says, watching Thrall. Is she making judgements behind her sharp eyes?

“Yes,” Eli hedges. She’s patient. Tsubasa, however, doesn’t seem to be one who wastes words or time.

“I’m here as a liaison from an alliance of magic-users.”

“As opposed to the established ambassadors?” Eli wants to know. “Couldn’t this have come through more conventional channels?”

Tsubasa’s heavy-lidded gaze sweeps over Eli, letting her know that the witch queen will not be disrespected. But there’s also a growing interest within the green stare (Eli’s stomach _drops_ when she notices the shade Tsubasa’s _eyes_ are). “Perhaps. But this is more of a general message from the allied covens in this area.” She leans forward, her entire body lined with crackling energy that says, _pay attention_ , “There is evil in your human world. It has begun with the Intercision, yes, but our future-seers say more is to come.”

Eli is silent – is this a threat? Is this a warning, or a promise? She focuses on Tsubasa’s forehead. Thrall is still frozen at the desk.

“Your humans are being sent to the mines by the sea – dark things like the cliff ghasts and the sharp-toothed merfolk are feeding well these days,” Tsubasa says.

“The majority of the people are being drafted to farmlands in the fens,” Eli responds weakly. Real news of death upsets her – haven’t all her fancy reports been saying the crime rate is almost nonexistent? That poverty levels are dropping at incredible speeds?

 _Well,_ Thrall thinks _, it’s because the government is shipping them across the nation to blatantly exploitive and meat-shield jobs._ Eli winces.

“We’ve also seen that you’re the best hope for stopping the future evils,” Tsubasa says clearly. “Our seers have therefore asked me to request your mobilizing to stop the deaths to come.”

“I’m working on it,” says Eli, slightly stung. “Are there rules against witches interfering in human politics? Centuries of history would say otherwise.”

Tsubasa smiles, finally, a cracking of her stony seriousness like a fire smoldering through the undergrowth – embers of amusement, hot to the touch. “The Magisterium has witches, too, Eli.”

**

“Cat daemons,” the Master says grandly, “are thought to be unlucky.”

Eli, were she an actual student at the university she’s visiting, would be taking copious notes on the fascinating discussion of animal/daemon differentiations. Instead she sits a little taller at the thought and tries to look imperious. It doesn’t quite work, she feels. Thrall projects a smirking attitude. They both feel so out of place here – a blue blood fox in a room full of sheep.

Thrall is very well-behaved, luckily. He doesn’t move when Eli thinks, sadly, _Rin._

They listen carefully as the professor outlines the distinctions of cat daemons – who can say, exactly, has kind of soul a person has except the experimental theologians in the Ministry of Health? – but common assumptions are made nonetheless.

“A daemon’s ultimate form is a reflection of personality, but it’s important to remember the social constructions behind daemon analysis,” says the instructor. “One cat daemon might be the result of their human’s _grace_ being a defining characteristic, and another may be from the human’s cleverness, or indifference. Beyond these obvious trait variations, it’s important to recall that other cultures attribute different qualities to certain daemon forms, not even _beginning_ to touch on individual appearances.”

“Well, daemons are made of photons, right?” asks one student near the front. He puts a hand in the air, in an embarrassed, tardy fashion. “So why do they look different?”

“Light and _deus_ particles, Ito. Dust. That’s more of a question for the theologians, isn’t it, given the research studies are just beginning to roll out with the new measures the Health Ministry is providing. The best I can tell you is-”

Eli starts as she’s tapped on the shoulder. Her personal guard, Akane and his hulking gorilla daemon, are looming just behind her. They want her private attention.

As she hurries out of the lecture hall, she hears the Master conclude: “Daemon forms are limited only by the imagination.”

Tracing their steps back through the winding, ancient hallways of the college is suspenseful, daring. She could have been here. She could have been in an entirely different world, taking classes and worrying about math and biology, the future of science and rationality, were she not the heiress to a throne that cares only for blood. “What is it?” Eli asks, a little sharper than she intended, as they find a quiet hall. Sunlight slants down into Thrall’s eyes as they turn to face their guard. This place, old and proud like the finest of dying gods, has refused government-funded anarbaric lights. It’s all firelight, here, hot and familiar.

 Akane frowns, but extends his giant hand to show her a grubby sort of note, singed and odd.

“Student passed it to me,” he says. “We should return to more secure premises.”

It’s short. It’s smelly and wrinkled. It says _you’re next._

**

“So things have come to this.” Alisa bites her lip and handles the threatening note carefully with two fingers, like it will awaken and attack.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me that the Magisterium workers were facing ambushes in the street?” Eli hisses, and paces back and forth across the thick golden rugs. The library, normally so peaceful and still, echoes with the growls between Diamanté and Thrall, sound like spikes of glass cutting through the somber, dark shelves.

“I knew you’d react this way,” says Alisa weakly. “But you’ve got the best security around, haven’t you, with the fact that your coronation is upcoming.”

“It’s not a coronation,” says Eli, stung. “I’m no royalty.”

“You may as well be,” Alisa says through Diamanté. Thrall thrashes his tail, rage sparkling in the bond. The sisters wait as the daemons have it out, rumbling snarls fading into a tense disquiet. There’s been a new uncomfortable air in conversations with Alisa – something tilted, something awkward. Maybe it’s the fact that Eli’s about to be separated from her sister forever in a way that no bridge can cross. Thrall turns his head away and begins grooming his hind leg in a way of pretending they don’t have to think about it.

“Listen, Eli. There have been rumors. Bad things, flying about.”

Eli rubs her forehead. “Now what?”

“The Magisterium Board of Governors… they’ve received leaked copies of some of your proposals,” says Alisa. “Some ex-employee of Father’s turned in a booklet of yours. They know you want to kill Incisions.”

As if there’s a question of exactly who has been through her drafts, pointless scrawlings of bills and hopes, and maybe a few indecipherably written poems about an owl. “How will I _ever_ turn around the entire Magisterium?” Eli blurts to the background of Thrall, who begins yipping at her sudden emotion; all control lost. “I’m the most powerful woman in the country and I can’t write a character without the world biting my heels – I’ll _never_ manage this, even with the backings of Kotori and Maki.” Thrall leaps into Eli’s arms and they fall back against their wingback chair, shaking with inevitability.

Alisa runs her hands over the plush upholstery of her chair, slow and thoughtful. Her slim fingers drift like summer clouds. Diamanté noses the warning note, fallen to the ground, growling gently. “I don’t… I don’t think you’re as alone as you think. I mean, within the Magisterium. Not everyone is awful.”

“I’d beg to differ,” says Eli, bitterly.

“Fine. Then go wider.”

“What?”

“Try a publicity assault,” says Alisa. “You don’t need Board approval to make your own campaign media. Request notices, hearings for the public. Maybe _we at the Magisterium are distant from the people. Tell us what you think_ , and provide resources for the common folk to contact us? That way you have lots of, hm, evidence?”

 _That’s genius_ , Thrall thinks at Eli. “The way we’ve been working is backwards,” says Eli, thinking of Nozomi’s crass mini-tirades on the inelegancies of the Magisterium’s power base. “We need proof that our traditions are hurting the people.”

“Right,” says Alisa. “We wouldn’t want anyone to be hurt.”

**

It’s not too much later when the news comes in – there’s word that a co-leader of some of the coordinated Anti-Magisterium attacks has been captured at last and is being held at the base prison, the ruins of a castle in the North. Eli takes to her personalized air travel and waves peaceably to the busybodies that have gathered at the offices to watch her ascend.

She’s not a fan of the balloons, dislikes the way they pull away from the ground with a violent lurch towards the sky and the blast of heat that singes the tips of her brows and Thrall’s tail, but the gargantuan feel of them in the air is one of a floating giant. They watch the world fall away, and Thrall tells Eli, “This is where we should be, but instead we’re in the middle of a silent war.”

An hour spent pacing the swinging basket is enough to bore Thrall. He creeps off to the corner some ten feet away, and Eli tries to ignore the twinge of pain when she paces in the opposite direction of his lithe body. When she makes eye contact, the captain of the ship turns away and makes an adjustment to the flame instead of holding her gaze. His daemon, a sweet little starling perched on his shoulder, leans in to whisper something directly into his ear.

A new set of guards meet her at the prison, two indiscriminate professionals with a tapir and a skunk daemon, respectively. They fall into place at her elbows as she gathers Thrall into her arms, ignoring the claws he digs into her shoulders as they walk towards the stone jail. Archers line the turrets, and at the gate, Eli passes an _ursa_ mercenary in conversation with a lancer, heavy, dark-furred shoulders rigid with almost two thousand pounds of armored muscle. The bear lowers its head as she passes – she’s struck with the amount of her power, that this beast should acknowledge _her_ for anything besides an unworthy meal – and then she’s inside the prison and doesn’t have time to marvel at the incredibility of blood.

“The resistance leader is very popular among the commoners,” explains the warden as she guides Eli and the guards up a winding staircase that creaks with the dusty years. “Charismatic, certainly, but not a huge physical threat as much as political one. The sentencing is up to you – there’s enough evidence to doom her for life, or even death, since it’s been proved she’s behind the attack on Director Minami Sr.”

The warden slams open the padded door, and it’s Eli’s first look at Rin in weeks.

**

Rin’s holding Fuku like a teddy, standing at the tower’s barred window, backlit by the dying sun like a story’s princess and Eli’s so choked up with sympathy she almost gasps out loud. “Ayase Eli,” says Rin with surprise as Fuku’s tired eyes focus in.

“Leave us,” Eli tells the warden and the guards.

“Here to tell me how the Magisterium has won?” asks Rin, bitterness drawn in every line of her young face. She moves forward, feet tapping a little melody on the cold stone floor, and takes a seat in the bare wooden chair at the modest maple table. Rin throws out a hand, mockingly, inviting Eli and Thrall to join her as the weighed iron bar clangs back over the door, locking them in securely.

“I wouldn’t hurt you like that,” says Eli sensibly, and Thrall moves towards Fuku, who turns away, flicking his black tail like a battle surrender. “Not the way you hurt Kotori, and her mother.”

“I didn’t do that,” says Rin. Her mouth is twisted in anger, or shame.

“You organized a near-fatal attack on one of our oldest friend’s mother! You wanted her dead!”

“I wanted a lot of things, Eli,” says Rin blandly, and has the decency to look away this time. The freckles stand out on her face much more since she’s been confined to the tower without sun – like spots of disease. “You knew what we were doing as Magisterium wasn’t… it wasn’t right.”

“We were expected more elegance from an attempted murderer about your reasoning,” Eli tells her, stung into aggression. “You’re cruel, Rin.” Fuku hisses; spits, and the sound bounces off the circular walls like the whole world is growling at Eli. Thrall bristles defensively and takes a position against Fuku, but the cat swivels his ears back in dismissal. They sit in silence for a moment, searching each other’s faces, mouths and eyes flat with indecision both ways.

“You’re here for information,” mutters Rin, finally, and her worn face sinks into languid exhaustion like a slump of autumn leaves. Fuku moves with some emotion, and both the girl and her soul seem to sigh.

“Yes.”

“Will I die?” asks Rin, plaintive and simple.

“Probably worse,” Eli tells her, and thinks, suddenly, of Maki’s horrified face, if she knew.

“Ah. Incision. Right.” Fuku moans like a real cat; he sidles up to Rin like they’re a child and puts his coarse head on her bony knee, mourning with an unembarrassed frankness that is almost offensive.

“Please. Just tell me.”

Rin casts her gaze around the cramped tower room, too-thin fingers at her wrists as she bites her lip. She knows it’s over. “I’m the co-leader of the action squad in the resistance,” she says. “They told you I was caught through a betrayal of my position? We were planning a robbery of a firearms store. The evidence was insurmountable. Here I am, in the highest of political prisons.”

“Targets on your list included my mother, and Maki’s father,” Eli prompts.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” Rin assures her blankly. “I could never…”

“But you would have sat by while others did.” Fuku and Thrall move closer to each other, carefully.

“The resistance is split,” Rin admits, smudging her hands on the smooth whorls of the table. “So many are for assassination of Magisterium officials now. I don’t think I could have stopped anything.”

“You never know your own potential,” Eli reflects, thinking of Nozomi. It seems Rin recognizes the brand of encouragement; her lips slide up in a feral, tired grin reminiscent of her deviousness pre-revolution.

“The resistance is about half and half nowadays, or at least, it was when I was picked up,” Rin explains, and draws a weary line down the surface of the table top. “A significant portion wants to start destroying the Magisterium in fire and blood, or putting everyone with power through Incision first. You’re at the top of their list. The other half is advocating for internal reform and electing a People’s Court with the same powers as the Magisterium Governor.”

“Oh?” Eli dares her, prodding as Fuku and Thrall touch noses gingerly. “And which side are you on?”

Rin blinks at her at if overwhelmed by this question. “Nozomi’s side, of course.”

**

The warden escorts Eli to the aerotravel balloon personally, standing a little too straight. “Thank you for visiting, My Lady,” she says. Her daemon skitters at her feet, some sharp, reptilian thing. Eli looks around her, sees the _ursa_ watching from the gate with an impossibly blank face.

“Pardon the prisoner and release her to house arrest, effective immediately,” Eli says. “Direct all complaints to me in writing.” She boards the areo without waiting for a response.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are.

“This doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Alisa says with surprisingly iron certainty. Despite her reluctance, she’s done her pale, greying hair back in complex braids that crown her head like the sweetest of circlets, wisps of fair baby hairs curling away from the edges of her long neck like ethereal fairy wings. Eli is filled with admiration at her sister’s talents, the feeling like blue heat in her veins. Alisa blinks at Eli and Thrall, who stare at her, almost uncomfortably focused. Diamanté huffs, gracelessly, and thumps his tail against the ground.

“There aren’t enough guards,” Alisa reiterates, and slips back into her bedroom, daemon at her heels. They’re in her seating rooms tucked into her wing of the mansion, and Eli takes the opportunity to pull Thrall onto her lap, in need of his coarse, whiskery comfort. He nips at her lip with his skinny teeth, a scratchy kiss, and they both think about Nozomi.

 Alisa comes back out in a resplendent, simple gold sundress. It has material that moves in the light and shimmers with captured sunbeams, a dulled lightning strike of a dress. “You look incredible,” Eli says honestly. This makes Alisa flush and curl into herself, lashes fluttering. _She’s so young,_ thinks Thrall with disbelief. _We don’t know her anymore_.

“You’ll be at the ball with Mother and Father,” Eli tells her, standing, and goes to stand at her back, tucking in an errant strap with hands cold enough that Alisa startles, more like a rabbit than a dog, really. “Don’t worry about me.”

Alisa slaps away Eli’s hands, a concise look of irritation flashing across her face like a stripe of moonlight. “You’ve invited rebel leaders into our home, into the heart of Ayase lands. These are the people who’ve been plotting to murder us, and people like us.”

“Up until now, you’ve shown sympathy and interest in them reaching their goals. I want to meet with them and see if there isn’t a way we can negotiate without hurting livelihoods or people.” Eli tries not to be upset that her sister has batted her away – metaphorically or otherwise. God, she thinks too much. Thrall and Diamanté peer at each other, puzzling out the emotions behind the dusty black eyes fox and dog share. “We have to talk about the future of the Magisterium.”

Bringing one manicured nail to her teeth, Alisa says, “I care about you more than them. I don’t want to go to the ball if you’ll be here by yourself. I won’t.”

“You will. Our parents cannot know about the meetup,” Eli says, smoothing a curl of Alisa’s fine hair between her fingers that shake, very slightly. The world is tilting out from under her. Alisa has had so much trouble. Eli tells Thrall, _we will die before anyone touches Alisa_. Thrall looks at her, and says, _I hope we are ready to take them on._

**  
Eli tries to peruse some historic volumes in the library, but finds the words blur together on the page in a riotous mess of inky striations, like a spill or a cloud. It’s challenging to focus on a certain task when one’s daemon is doing something else, and Thrall has leaped up to the windowsill that overlooks the back of the mansion, sniffling at the crystalline glass. Eli looks through his eyes and surveys the healthy, earthy fields fading into proud mountains, all hers. Everything is hers, and she is so tired.

An hour after the family has gone to the ball, Eli leaves the library and wanders back to her corridors, peering inelegantly into drawers full of jewelry and figurines, papers and shoes, until she finds herself in the silver-backed mirror. Her reflection shocks her. She’s staid; sterner and taller than she remembers being, half-wrinkles edged in segments of her face that she can’t recall existing. Her hair is long and even, framing the metallic blue of her eyes with a curtain of fine gold, all of which serves to emphasize her muscled boniness, her thin hands and neck and cheeks. Thrall says, “They tell you you’re beautiful.” He sits at her feet, nose twitching with some quiet emotion as he takes them in.

Thrall has neat, tufted ears and a way of tilting his furry head back that makes him seem focused, determined. Eli has never felt bad about her soul before, but maybe in the wrong light, Thrall might look mangy, dirty. Something undeserving to be Magisterium, even though he’s a predator and his form tells the viewer that Eli is cunning.

“Let’s get ready,” he says, and averts his eyes while Eli goes to the press and runs her hands over her dresses, wondering if it’s possible to hurt her own feelings.

The feel of the chosen azure dress has barely settled on her body, feathery silk on her hips and thighs, when a maid calls up the stairs, “Lady, the young mistress is back,” and Eli forgoes shoes or doing her hair in favor of tromping to the entrance of her wing and seeing Alisa wave at her on the staircase. Her graceful little hand moves in a quick one-two swipe through the air, something poised and mischievous and proud in the signal, with her daemon wagging his tail in the exact same manner.

“What are you _doing_ here?” Eli says, rushing down the stairs with Thrall pattering at her heels, and the two house guards standing down at the double doors in the foyer snap their backs up straighter, her voice alone punching them into better posture.

“I told you, I want to be here for the open table,” Alisa says mulishly, brushing some of her loose hairs from her cheeks and frowning. “You can’t send me out now. It’s half an hour until the meeting time.”

Eli resists the urge to tear her own hair out and resolves for a hearty scowl that settles on her face like a smog. Thrall snarls at Diamanté, who barks back with a deep, bone-shaking bolt of sound. _What do you think you could do for us,_ she wants to say, but the biting and truthful implications, that Alisa is an untrained heir who is no use in combat or politics, is something she can’t verbalize, not an hour after silently promising Alisa the world. Is it her duty to keep her sister? Thrall shakes out his fur as if emerging from water.

“How did you get back here so quickly?”

“I told Father I was ill,” Alisa explains, and takes a seat right on the stairs like a commoner with her slender back to Eli. She kicks off her gilded flats onto the imported rug and Diamanté fetches them back, diamonds in his mouth like stars.

“Alisa,” Eli says, tired. It is a stalemate, her little sister smiling up with rare victory sparkling in her eyes. They stand in near-awkward silence for upwards of a minute, while Eli leaves her mouth open like a fish and scrapes at ways to get her sister out of the house. Excuses like ocean currents drift through her mind, and none are particularly attractive, feasible, or legal. The dinner gong rings from the kitchens, the reverberation singing through the foyer into all the Ayase’s bones – Thrall throws his glance out the window; the sun is verging on three o’clock, what is _happening_ in there? – and a hired hand rushes into the entrance with one of the guards from the tower with a cobra twined about his forearm, and a chicken daemon clucking nervously at the servant’s calf.

“Lady,” babbles the hand, and makes a belated, jolting bow. His face is sweaty, stretching shiny with stress as his daemon busies herself thrusting her head into the rug. “Across the front lawn there are people, there’s a crowd of people coming. I had the cook make the signal; we saw from the front windows.”

The guard’s cobra slides up to his shoulder as he unsheathes a silver-hilted short sword from his waist. Eli is caught by the brutal curve of it in the entry anabaric lights. “Visibly armed, some of them. A large crowd of perhaps forty, at least nine with large daemons. I wonder how they got past the gates,” he says, examining his blade with casual dispassion. Eli closes her eyes.

Thrall tells the gathered servants and Alisa: “We told the front guards to take the day off today, after Mother and Father left. We assured the rebellion leaders that the mansion would be unguarded; safe for them to visit and not be arrested so we could meet and discuss terms and plans.”

“My Lady,” says the guard calmly, “That was a terribly stupid thing to do. The people coming onto the property don’t look as if they’re here for conversation. For one thing, it’s a small army.”

Alisa has begun to look afraid. Eli snaps to when she sees the first touch of panic replace smugness in her little sister’s eyes. “Let’s go, then.”

**

“You shouldn’t have trusted the common folk with your life like this, My Lady,” the guard tells her as he hefts cabinets and shelves in front of the library doors, a handy, quick barricade. He huffs out after constructing a layer of wood and twisted metal, bands of muscle hinted at under his thick robes. The servants have all fled to the kitchens and out the back doors, the spare guards deployed to protect them from the approaching mob. Eli, feeling Thrall’s embarrassment that is her own reflected and magnified, ignores this and smooths her hands over the ancient, muted shelves on the back wall of the library, between two blackened wall sconces that throw old firelight across Alisa and Diamanté as they sidestep Eli’s deft searches.

“I only trust one of them,” she mutters, and her fingertip catches on a webbed stone switch that she scrabbles at. It shreds her nail bloody, but she gets it flipped with Thrall peering up from her calves, and a section of the wall groans and slides back, revealing a truly dismaying set of dilapidated stairs leading into musty smelling darkness.

“The old tunnels?” asks Alisa fretfully, now on her knees hugging Diamanté’s broad, fuzzy shoulders. She has two handfuls of his gold fur and looks in desperate need of comfort. “But you can only close it from the outside. They’ll know we’re in there.”

“I know,” says Eli. “You’re going through the tunnels.” She turns to the guard. “And you won’t stop until you get her to Nishikino Maki’s estates. I don’t care what you have to do, what you have to pay. Get her to Maki’s. Don’t come back unless she’s safe.”

“Eli, no!” gasps Alisa, and beings to cry, streams of tears as clear tracks down her pale face. She rubs at them with the back of a thin hand. Well. She’s only a girl, after all, and Eli sees a cold understanding in the guard’s eyes. Maybe Eli would have been a good guardian, or maybe, she wonders suddenly, a good mother. If she survives the day.

The guard leans over Alisa and picks her up, right off the ground, like a puppy of his own as she hiccups and pushes at his shoulder with fumbling palms, uncontrollably frail against his easy bulk like a hamster curled into a bear. Diamanté opens his mouth and almost howls before the cobra _thunks_ to the ground from her human’s shoulders and flares her patterned hood in a violent thrust forward, hissing with such shadowed threat in her luminous ruby eyes that Diamanté halts, still as stone, which of course stuns Alisa. The guard reaches up with one immense hand and snaps the left sconce off the wall, easy as breaking a twig, and holds it up as his torch. “Goodbye, Lady Eli,” he says, respect flashing across his face like a shadow, and in the same moment the cobra strikes at Diamanté, who flinches backward and twists on his paws in a leap, and Alisa runs into the tunnel after him, dragged by her own soul. Her yells echo back through the dimness, and the cobra regains her situation on the guard’s shoulder. They step into the murky passageway, and Eli drags her hand on the switch, allowing the door to settle back into place.

**

Eli tries not to be nervous and fails. Thrall bites his own tail, mirroring the way Eli digs her nails into her palms until the sparks of pain hitting her from both bodies is too much.

They hear the smashing of glass from the front hall and hope the servants are long gone. There are muffled shouts through the door, and a strict voice shunts commands about. The strident sound slips through the barricade of the library doors, and Eli, with a sinking feeling, knows it’s over soon. They’ll try all the doors. When they discover this one is locked, it will be obvious where the heir to Magisterium government is hiding, and they’ll come for her.

“Foolish,” she tells Thrall comfortingly, and lifts him onto her lap, running her hands over his bristly fur. He puts his muzzle on her shoulder, _together_ , her heartbeat and soul sending eddies of ease back to her. They’re still together. Somewhere along the way she’d lost track of the horrors of Incision – her greatest fear is no longer living without a soul. It’s living with the disappointment that she’s caused for people who rely on her, or people like her. Maybe she doesn’t deserve a soul. Thrall takes offense at this thought, scratching harder than usual at her thighs as her turns himself around on her lap, tail slapping her face and giving her a mouthful of stringy fur.

A tiny knock at the door, almost astonishingly light; formal. “Eli?”

Thrall hunkers down on Eli’s legs, teeth bared soundlessly, a burst of anabaric sparks coming from his fur. Eli has never seen him so riled – she stays silent. Then, “Eli, I can see your bond. I know you’re in there,” Nozomi adds, and Eli’s mind shuts down.

She weighs the pros and cons – Nozomi wins. Eli finds herself nearly throwing Thrall from her lap and damaging her knuckles as she lunges to heave back shelves and chairs twice her weight. If she’s going to die, she’s going to see Nozomi first. There’s no threat – is there? Thrall watches uncomfortably from the wingback, ears back. They both know what will happen when they open the door.

And then there she is, Toujou Nozomi, with her great, dark lashes and rueful, insecure half smile. Eli’s thoughts stutter and grind to a halt as she drops her hands, pretending she is not breathing hard from wrestling with a wrought-iron shelf. Porvenir, perched as ever on Nozomi’s tough leather shoulder pad, throws back his wings in a feathery flare and clacks his beak, the sound like the chink of ice on a frozen lake. Nozomi shuts the double doors behind her, hand lingering on the lock, then turns back to Eli and smiles with a touch of sadness, an ink drop on watercolor. She’s lovely.

It brings back the catalyst, the moment of realization by the radio so vividly Eli takes a step back, bare foot dusting along the lavish carpeted floor. She _loves_ Nozomi, loves her like a magnet, a mirror. Her body, made use of until now only insofar as it upkept her mind, wracks with bursts of cool sparks and the swell of something so deep she cannot name it. Thrall tilts his head back, barks hoarsely at the echoing walls, rigid and immense in the face of this exposure she allows herself to feel for the first time in her life. The dam has broken.

Nozomi’s brows lift, and then she says, “Eli,” like the downward plunge of a sword, eyes on the space between Eli and Thrall. Their bond must be set to explode. “I know you didn’t want to see me again, but I’m representative of some of the resistance. They didn’t know about our… history. They asked me to come.”

“So you’re not here of your will?” Eli chokes out the words, surprisingly comprehensible through the storm flooding through her from Thrall, who throws up no walls to the emotions she’s trying to block. She’s never tried to hole herself away from her soul – Thrall is pure _sensation_ ; he’s letting in or producing this primal, scathing feeling that smashes into her chest and skull, clawing at her eyes and making her hands writhe, almost beyond control. This is what it’s like to break your own heart; this is what it’s like for your soul to tell you about love.

Porvenir drops to the floor with flattened wings as Eli desperately shoves up resistance to Thrall, clutching at the space over her heart and backing up into a shelf of books that topple to the floor in a cascade of aged paper and creaking spines, but Thrall shakes out his head and yips, bashing through the poorly constructed mental guard with the uncontainable inferno of emotion.

“Eli!” says Nozomi, watching Thrall wrack himself to pieces and Eli’s wincing, “I’m here because I want to be. I’m here to talk.” Her voice drops, and Porvenir hops a bit closer to Thrall. “I’m here to see you.” As she speaks, Porvenir tilts his head, raises a wing, and smacks Thrall so that the fox tumbles into a table tail over head, knocking a crystal glass askew. Water splatters the rug, and Thrall’s onslaught ceases. Eli gasps.

She feels like she’s sprinted a marathon, cheeks red, bare toes curling, a hollowed-out mask of a girl. “Thrall, what _are you doing_?”

“I don’t know!” he fusses, and raises his paws one at a time frantically, rough. “I don’t know! I didn’t mean to hurt us!”

“Eli, have you never channeled?” Nozomi asks gently, and Porvenir puts his wide face next to Thrall, who balks.

“No, and I can’t play games, Nozomi,” Eli whispers, and falls into a wingback chair. It’s a bit damp from the spilled water, but she puts her fingers on the wet velvet and tries to focus, still breathing heavily.

“You can’t put all your feelings into your daemon. It builds up and multiplies, and the connection has to bear it all at once when it’s too much.”

“I didn’t know,” says Eli. “I’ve done that my whole life. I’m not supposed to feel.” Thrall moves towards her, ears flat, and Eli can’t believe it when she flinches away from her soul.

“You’re hurting yourself,” Nozomi says, and angles herself slightly. Eli tries not to notice the grace of her movements, the sincerity of her gaze. Porvenir hops over and this time Thrall leans on him, the soul bond strained and thin from the force of the break.

“I’m so tired,” Eli’s voice cracks. “I can’t see a way out of this. I can’t do it, Nozomi. I can’t make you think – I wanted to do something good. I’m going to die for it.”

“No, Eli, no-” Nozomi sweeps forward and kneels, her hair scraping the floor as she levers herself messily before the chair, wide face earnest, intensive as she catches Eli’s eyes. “You’re doing well. You’ve been trying so hard; I hear everything on the radio. You released Rin! You proposed the Council, you’re trying to abolish Incision and recall the Draft. You’re doing so well, Eli, everything I could have thought of to try to improve the lives of the people – you’re doing them.”

“But I’m still going to die today,” Eli whispers. Thrall skulks around the base of the shelves just behind her. She can feel his creeping shame and whirling, spiked confusion – he didn’t mean to hurt her, never thought he could.

“I told them not to come,” Nozomi murmurs, her throat pinching off the sound of her voice at the end, almost as if she is trying not to cry. “Nobody would listen. Even with Rin on my side– she’s so powerful among the leadership – Haru is the most dangerous of us, now. He wants justice for his brother, the first Incised man.” Eli remembers the brightness of the blade coming down, and her jaw tightens. A self-made enemy. Maybe she deserves it, at this point.

“What’s your answer to the problem of the Magisterium?”

“It’s not a problem, necessarily,” Nozomi says, and rolls back to sit on her haunches, frowning. Porvenir bobs his head and flutters over to Thrall, who pokes his nose out cautiously. “We need to work together. The system is too engrained to have any chance of successful revolution. Regicide is not the answer.”

Outside, the doorknob rattles, then shakes as if there’s a windstorm. “This one’s locked,” reports a loud voice.

“Well,” says Eli, and she can feel Porvenir has succeeded in drawing Thrall out from the shelves and is settled with his feathered head gently butting the fox’s side, “here we are.” She wants to say, _I missed you_ and _you made me a better person_ , but instead she clears her throat with a huffed choke.

Nozomi stands, stretches both arms up in a plea to the sky and smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Here we are, Eli. I’ll make sure you’re okay. I won’t leave you here alone. I trust you.”

Eli thinks she isn’t alone, can never be alone, but she’s also captivated by the honesty of Thrall and Porvenir’s tender contact. She gets up, reaches for Nozomi at the same time the doors shake with the weight of a heavy daemon smashing into the outside. The kiss is splintering wood and growing, curious, lazy warmth burning in her throat. Oh, she _loves_ Nozomi, who is beyond tricky; gentle and clear-minded and _good_. Someone she wants to hold her cheeks like this, lean into, sigh as their souls curl into each other, the shining feelings leaking through the bond doubling and dizzying and right.

The door crunches under the weight of the rhinoceros, which lumbers backward gawkily in an attempt to not break the taboo and touch any other humans. Two people squeeze in through the fractured, tumbledown frame, trailing a wolf and a black cat that hop easily into the messy room. A few armed civilians pick their way through the ruins to stand guard, small mammal daemons creeping at their feet like shadows. The flickering anabaric light catches the smooth gleam of the barrels on their rifles.

Nozomi spins them so fast Eli sees stars – suddenly she’s sitting in the closest chair, covered in wall dust, and Nozomi is standing a foot and a half to her left, in before a pile of abandoned books. Their daemons separate, and Eli wonders if they both feel the loss of sensation like a phantom limb.

Rin winks at Eli from behind the broad shoulders of the man, who must be Haru. His striped wolf sniffs the air and draws her lips back in a soundless snarl. “The meeting we’ve been looking forward to,” says Nozomi with the ease of a diplomat, ignoring the fact that there are about six people’s faces edging through the doorway, besides the room’s guards, all holding weapons. “As you can see, I’ve found Ayase Eli, our future leader and the hope for a better world.”

“Hardly,” says Haru. His voice is almost unnaturally low; Eli swallows her inappropriate amusement – is he faking it to be impressive? She focuses on the way his thick fingers curl and crack. He must be imagining her neck. “This woman is the epitome of everything we’ve fought against. It’s time to start the new era.”

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Nozomi says with a forced lightness. She’s an excellent actress. Eli looks at her still-bare feet and takes a breath, marshaling her thoughts past their kiss. She can’t leave Nozomi alone to this.

Thrall gingerly steps out from behind the chair, and Eli reaches out and takes him by the scruff, swinging him into her arms as she stands in one sleek movement, like she’s dancing again. The rebel guards train their firearms on her, but Nozomi slides sideways so smoothly it’s as if the floor is ice; she seems to have been moved by air alone. Rin darts much less gracefully to Eli’s side and puts an arm on her waist, taut smile painted on her face.

“You’re right,” declares Haru agreeably, and pats his waist. A ripping noise, and he’s pulled out of a gleaming metallic L, a thing that looks like a toy rifle with a miniscule neck. Eli stares. Thrall quivers, the ruff on his neck flaring out, widening his stance. “This is nonsense. I’m going to kill her here and now.”

“ _No_ ,” hisses Nozomi with enough venom that everyone in the tense room blinks at her, and she visibly rescinds and withdraws to an eggshell politeness: “A prisoner, at the very most. But the reforms of our governing body would be most effective with a receptive leader, which Eli has proved to be.”

“This new weapon is the stepping stone to powers the Magisterium cannot imagine,” Haru says dismissively, and waggles it back and forth, scornful. “Destruction of corruption will be facilitated by the rise of technology like this pistol. We’re going to turn your evil reign into _rubble_ ,” he says. Rin pats Eli’s hip, uncharacteristically silent, but Fuku waves his tail at Thrall, to say they won’t let anything happen.

“I want to help, Haru.” Eli takes motions with exaggerated mildness, slow and steady as the turn of flowers to the sun. Nozomi looks nervous, with Thrall sending currents of controlled calm. “We want the same things. I’m working on my end to allow us to meet halfway. This drama doesn’t need such violence,” she eyes the gun that Haru rolls between his thick hands, “or so many guards. I’ve sent mine off, as a show of trust, because I genuinely want to sit down and speak about what we can do to change the Magisterium and set it back on a course for the people. For the good of the people. That’s why I invited you all here today.”

Haru sniffs. Nozomi inserts, “She’s unguarded, Haru. It’s clear she’s telling the truth. I can feel it like webs in my bones.”

“The descendant of a witch has a lot of suspicious powers,” Haru says. His voice is tight like grinding teeth. “Ayase Eli. You’re far too much of a pawn at this point. You’d never be able to make the changes you’re promise. Our government is ruined – and you’re only the figurehead.”

Stung, Eli replies. “I want to help.”

“You could never understand the violence you’ve done to us.” Haru’s wolf strides towards Thrall, only to get waylaid by Fuku and Porvenir, who lash out with claws and wings to keep the predator at bay. Haru’s mouth twists in frustration.

“We need reform! It’s the only way to set a stable precedent for the future, our people, our children,” Nozomi pleads.

“We have to stop and think, for once,” Rin says firmly. Her voice still carries the aura of one who must be obeyed – Eli sees a few guards in the background nod in spite of themselves.

But the same guards nod when Haru accuses Nozomi, “You’ve lost sight of our vision. You’re nothing but a traitor to the cause. This will destroy your reputation in our circles.” He flicks his fingertips at the other rebels in the room. “Stand outside; face the entryway. Pace, or something. We need to discuss this as originally planned.”

As the armed civilians gather their daemons and crunch their way through the shattered door, Eli lurches in panic at his former statement. Rin moves uncomfortably at the same time, having responded instinctually to the same threat that has been drilled into their beings since literacy: uphold the reputation. “Nozomi,” Eli begins, and Rin cuts her off at once, raising a hand like she’s summoning courage.

“Hold, Eli. Some things are bigger than one person.”

“Haru,” says Nozomi, hurt, and once there is only leadership in the room, he wets his lips, does something with his thumb, and points the gun at Eli. He fires.

A fox, agile as it is, does not have the requisite power to leap at the speed necessary to intercept a bullet. An owl wouldn’t have the time to flap enough to gain height. The black cat is viewed as a god for many reasons, and a daemon cat has the combined razorblade mind and lucky nature of his human.

Fuku flies up from a crouched position, and the shot tears through him. At once, his form loses cohesion and a rain of dusty, oil-slick particles erupt and dissipate into the air like smoke. A strange, beautiful noise comes sailing out of Rin’s mouth – it might be a song, but really it sounds like a name– and she slumps loosely to the carpet. Eli is knocked sideways as Nozomi finally tackles her, centuries too late. They fall together against the back wall, Nozomi on Eli like a wildly inappropriate fantasy, legs and skin everywhere.

“Shit,” Haru mutters, eyes widening, and his big thumb slides on the gun and he looks with dismay at Rin’s body. There can be no pretending – Fuku is gone, and so is Rin. Eli untangles herself from Nozomi, shaking and furious that her wimpy silence thus far has gotten her oldest friend murdered – Nozomi’s hair is still in her mouth, and Nozomi’s hand is still underneath Eli’s thigh, and she _feels_ Thrall’s heartache, his horror at the shell of Rin; the extinguishment of Fuku. Haru whips his head from Nozomi to his daemon, who has returned to twine around his legs, lean, grey body bending like water as she nudges him, offering comfort.

He deserves none. “You killed Rin, you filthy _murderer,_ ” Eli spits, and staggers sideways as rare abhorrence sings in her blood and her soul screeches, a spear through the ear.

“The rebellion will have nothing to do with you after this. Rin was our hope.” Nozomi coughs, and struggles to her feet behind Eli. Porvenir hops around her, jittery and shivering to his wingtips.

Haru curls his fingers in his daemon’s fur, taking deep breaths, eyes on Rin. “I’ll have to cover this up,” he says, words slurring too-fast from his mouth as he shapes the desperation. “Three leaders will have to become one.”

“They’ll never believe I managed to do all of this,” Eli slaps him with the words. “Put down the gun!”

He aims at Nozomi, one eye closed, and Porvenir erupts into the air, screeching as he slashes into the wolf daemon with those wicked talons. The lupine growls and flings up her paws, tipped with those deadly points. Thrall leaps into the tussle, batting and shredding with his swift needle-pricks. The combined efforts stun Haru briefly; his daemon steals his attention and his arm with the gun falls back to his side. Eli grabs Nozomi and they edge along the side of the room, shelves against their backs as their daemons tear at the wolf. Eli gnaws her lip as her bare feet come into contact with a sliver of the broken door frame; blood dripping from her sole, they maneuver rapidly towards the exit.

This brings them too close to the whaling daemons. The wolf bites, hard, on Porvenir’s wing, and Nozomi gasps and grabs her left arm, twisting her head. Thrall rushes forward with a charged roar, but the wolf swings Porvenir into the fox, and they both tumble sideways into a shelf. Eli looks up. Haru’s gaze clears and he turns, pointing again at Nozomi in an easy turn to face them.

Eli doesn’t think. She sees Nozomi, face plastered against the wall as she breathes shallowly, and the wolf tightens her jaws on Porvenir. Eli takes a step forward and kicks the hard ribs of the wolf, so violently she can feel it reverberate through her body, and it jolts sideways and falls. Eli is still shoeless. Her bare foot has come into contact with another’s soul, and her body slackens at the rage that gushes through her veins in that second, sending her careening into the middle of the carpet, where she trips and falls directly onto the grey wolf attempting to leap to its feet.

She’s touching Haru’s soul – everything he keeps in the wolf surges through Eli’s mind like a blue-hot wind. It bites into Eli’s concentration – she struggles to get to her knees in the bloody dust of the carpet, clutching at her forehead, the wolf thrashing below her to get away. Shouts and half-formed, bittersweet feelings and hungry urges yank on her in all directions; she thinks she sees Nozomi punching a limp Haru, but then she sees a field of apple trees and lazy contentment rips into her. She knows she’s smiling, deranged, and there’s a _pop_ and snarls around her, or maybe it’s the deafening clatter of machines in a mill, sawdust in her throat and a spiked hate in her wrists as she stomps into a cramped bedroom where a woman with black hair slides a bowl of oatmeal towards her.

More things, more images and full-body sensations that make up Haru’s soul. She’s living the darkest things he’s ever thought of, she wants to tear her tongue out at the root, beat her fists bloody against her own skull – Eli staggers up and promptly falls backwards, catching herself on the arm of a chair. Everything seems to stop.

The wolf has vanished, and Haru is facedown, spilling blood out onto the gold carpet. Nozomi and Porvenir, hands and wings sticky scarlet, hurry across the room to Thrall, who is frozen, ears high and whiskers taut.

Eli can’t feel anything, like the deepest ice of winter. She… she can’t feel Thrall. The fox stands at her feet, staring up at her with the beady, dark eyes, and… she can’t feel a thing. She closes her eyes, searching herself. It’s as if she’s been burned out from the inside, boneless, heartless. Soulless.

Nozomi grasps at Eli, pulls at her arm as rebel soldiers from the rest of the mansion race in, gasping at the mess of blood and books. The clanks of their armor and boots shake the room.

“What happened in here?” shouts one.

“That’s the heir,” says another.

“Commander Haru and Lady Rin are _dead_ ,” wheezes a third, sparks of horror in the stretch of his voice.

“Aim!” someone says, and Eli feels the currents of air as Nozomi whirls on them.

“Stop that at once,” she snaps, and there are the noises of weapons being lowered, clicking and a droll hum of something or other. Eli doesn’t open her eyes, can’t think past second to second. “Get out of here. The meeting isn’t over.” Beads of misery slip through her cracked mind – is it hers, or Thrall’s, or both? He makes a soft sound at her feet. Waiting.

“There’s not much time left of the allotted safe span,” a rebel says.

“Did you hear me? Leave, and guard the door, then.” Nozomi flings the words like javelins. Eli listens to the _thunk_ of their impressions on the rebels, who exit in a hasty, slurry manner. Nozomi puts her arms around Eli, holding her close with a tinge of meekness. “Eli, Eli, your bond is grey.”

“Say something,” urges Porvenir’s high voice.

“Who am I?” Eli slits the question through her teeth. Everything she is has been tainted. The sanctity of her being feels like Haru – passionate, starving, this eternal _want_ tugging at the core of her. This is not who she is.

“Eli, pick up Thrall,” Nozomi whispers. “Talk to your soul.” Eli peels her eyes open. The rusty fox is still watching her, glacier-patient and firm in his observance. Is this who she is? Exhaustedly, she extricates herself from Nozomi’s reluctant arms and bends down.

Thrall hops into her grip and nestles against her chest. It feels like her heartbeat has been doubled. Ripples of contentment ease into her fingers and throat – she hadn’t noticed how cold she’s been. “Thrall,” she whispers.

“Eli,” he says, and licks her cheek.


	10. Chapter 10

At the door, the attendant clears his throat, tabby cat daemon prim at his heels. “The Guard is preparing for the opening ceremonies. Shall I tell them you will be ready soon?”

Eli allows Nozomi’s cold hands to smooth back the lavish collar of her formal robe, the ice-blue of the draping stole almost matching her eyes. “Thirty minutes. Thank you,” Nozomi says, softly, dismissively. Thrall and Porvenir make natural noises at each other as the attendant bows and backs gratefully out of the office. Eli ducks Nozomi’s questing hands and crosses to the window, a fancy frosted glass, and listens to the low roar of the crowd outside of the Magisterium Center, yells and calls and the hoots and shrieks of daemons. The cobblestone streets down to the dusty foot-trail alleyways must be packed with people waiting for the new Governor’s first address. Thrall barks out gruffly as Eli scowls into the pane.

“Yes?” asks Nozomi teasingly, and leans up against the manuscript-laden desk, one eyebrow raised but gaze frank and concerned, solid as ever. Her nails tap a tiny melody.

“I don’t know if it’s worth discussing half an hour before the most stressful day of my life,” Eli admits, and Porvenir clacks his beak to let her know that Nozomi isn’t impressed by this dramatic statement.

“Everything you want to talk about is worth the discussion,” Nozomi says.

 _I can think of another stressful day_ , Thrall thinks so sarcastically Eli knows she’s being outlandish. He hops up and motions with his whiskers to Eli’s still-bandaged feet.

“Right, thank you,” Eli tells them both.

The pauses lengthens until Nozomi rolls her eyes and goes to stand at the window with Eli, and they hear the shiftings and the grating, dull noise of a million – two million!- people and souls come to witness the birth of a new era. Nozomi kisses Eli, nothing more than a gracious peck, but twines their hands together like she can’t _really_ get enough.

Eli says, “I’m not what they want. I’m not truly _good_.”

Nozomi says, “That’s absurd,” and Porvenir takes to the air with a magnificent flash of speckled distain, landing on his human’s shoulder to peer more deeply into Eli’s eyes. Wanting to present a united front, Thrall dashes over the few feet and stretches up to Eli’s knee.

“But I don’t think it is!” Eli says, frustrated. “I’ve done good things, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m a good person.”

“You wanting to be good suggests the truth of the matter,” Porvenir says in his high, light voice. “Nothing in this universe is so black and white as a Manichean didactic would suggest. I think you are good because your desire to be prompts to you to change the world _for_ the good.” It’s odd to hear philosophy from an owl. Eli and Thrall blink.

“What I mean is that you’ve changed,” Nozomi says carefully. “When we first met, would you have seen yourself pushing for institutional reformation and distribution of power for the people?”

“I did it because I love you,” Eli says, exasperated, and resists the urge to go Maki on her hair. For one, Alisa has unleashed full creative capacity on Eli’s head for the induction, and every strand is meticulously groomed into a ponytail with curls sparkling off in layers, elongating the bones in Eli’s face and marking a stern, formal air about her. She pauses to take in Thrall’s reflections of her; all encouraging, quick touches and support. “You showed me how people were hurting, and it was within my power to change it… it didn’t get done for everyone, not for the good of society, but because you opened my eyes and the corruption had to go.”

“That’s good,” Nozomi says lightly, but her eyes dart appreciation and she tucks a foolish smile into the corners of the serious look she gives Eli.

Eli refocuses on the din of the crowd, gathering faster now outside the building that is her fate. “It was selfish.” Thrall doesn’t think so, but he sympathizes with her, pressing his nose to her shin and huffing, a faint sound of dissatisfaction just like the hum of annoyance Eli makes herself when the piles of missives on her desk get too high, too fast, and Nozomi takes her by the hand and laughs-

Well, she’s getting off track. Nozomi shines in her memories, but she’s also right in front of Eli, finally, finally, and even the half-scowl she levels as she disentangles herself is beautiful. “Selfish doesn’t mean bad, not always.”

Eli considers. “Maybe it was selfish of me to change everything the country has known, just for what I wanted… and I think what I wanted was to make the world a safer place for people like Hanayo and Nico at the tea shop. I think… this might be another kind of love.”

Nozomi laughs, somehow a perfect octave up from Porvenir’s lilting tone and ten times as enthralling, and Eli flushes as her assistant and her daemon curve away and sit at the desk meant for the governor, careless and long-limbed. Nozomi brushes off some parchment and picks up a pen, over-dipping it in the well to roll her eyes at something Porvenir has communicated silently. She begins to scribble in slanted characters. “So, Ayase Eli. You’ve met some women at a tea shop, attended an activist rally, talked to a witch queen, seen an _ursa_ , broken the taboo, buried a friend… seen the world change, and made your own mark on it. You’ve beaten Incision, but there are plenty of dark things in the world. What do you have to say, before you start your _official_ rule?”

Thrall moves back his whiskers and jumps into Eli’s arms as she opens them for him. It’s nice, to have her heartbeat singing against her chest. He puts his paws on her shoulders and sends such love through the bond it _aches_. A _soul_ , warm and inexplicably both her and something else entirely, forever mysterious and inconceivably alive. _I am yours and you are mine_ , he tells her. Eli cuddles him closer and sees Nozomi put her fingertips up to Porvenir’s beak, probably reading the force of the interaction through their bright golden bond.

“There’s a lot to do,” Eli murmurs, and shifts Thrall’s weight in her arms so she can walk closer to Nozomi, “and I’m going to face it with you, Maki, and Kotori at the helm.”

**

As they walk down the hallway, another attendant, this one in gold-and-white livery of the Ayase house, hurries up with a scroll and an envelope, border collie daemon well-behaved and raising his paws delicately on the carpet of the grand hall – “Ten minutes until the address, ma’am. This note for you from the preparatory room, the other mailed from last night.”

Eli holds both communications, slightly entertained by the forms they’ve taken. Traditional meeting modern, all in her hands. This is the edge of the future she stands on. Thrall nips her shin, and she remembers she’s on a time limit and slips her thumb under the flap of the envelope first. Nozomi stands patiently at her side, but she’s craning her neck to read anyway, owl on her shoulder peering just as nosily.

“The Ayase elders have been detained in a southern province,” Eli reports. “They’ll not be back to celebrate my induction for some hours.”

“Excellent,” says Nozomi bluntly, voicing all four of their opinions shortly. Eli loves the ease of her feelings. The other note is much more pleasing.

“Friends are in the meeting room overlooking the balcony.” They start walking, a little faster now. Nozomi clears her throat as they pad down the gilt entryway and through an arch of marble, the echoes of the crowd somewhat dulled as they head further inside in order to reach the hall outside.

“I’ll always be here for you, Eli,” she says, voice so soft it cushions the words in a cloud of careful promise, “I’ll love and support you through the winds and the rains, as well as keep an eye on you.”

“Politically, you mean?” asks Eli, and Thrall hastens at her heels, perfectly in step with the sudden jump in her emotions. “That seems…. Partial.”

Nozomi squints. “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that divide, exactly,” says Eli slowly as they trek up crystalline stairs, a miniature waterfall tumbling from the ceiling in perfect repose, cascading water tracing their conversation like a silver shadow. “Are you my advisor, or my lover, or my friend?”

“I don’t see why I can’t be all of those things,” Nozomi says. “Wouldn’t you want a friendly, rational love? I can’t imagine you’d want a mercurial, testy one.” She smiles, and Porvenir straightens and fluffs out his feathers on her shoulder as they arrive outside a thick double door. Eli catches her wrist.

“I’m inspired by you, Nozomi. I want to take on the world with you,” she says as plain as she knows how, and is rewarded by the flicker of fondness that spreads like a spark in Nozomi’s gaze. Thrall makes a noise in the back of his throat, and that reminds Eli to open the door.

**

The meeting room has the wide balcony perched just outside – heavy glass panes that shine like mirrors block most, but not all, of the noise. Eli is thankful when Maki, always good at discernment, gets up from the couch and twitches the glossy gauze curtains over the outside doorway. She doesn’t want to see or think about it for another few moments.

Hanayo, kneeling at a low table with lovely Viridian behind her like a stone wall, makes weak eye contact with Eli and snaps shut the ragged little book she’s writing in, probably spoiling the inky characters. Nico, at the seat nearest, brushes an errant drop from the wood of the table and deigns to give Eli a head jerk, with Ni not even baring his teeth. “Hey, Nozomi,” says Nico with a much more amiable attitude.

Nozomi crosses the room to give Nico a big hug, and Porvenir leaps off of her shoulder, taking to the air while avoiding the dripping crystal chandelier that throws shining anabaric light in all directions, glinting rainbows on his speckled wings. Eli chooses to sit next to her sister and Kotori on a couch, as far away from the balcony doors as possible. Diamanté and Abraxas scoot away from the edge of the seat and their humans, so that Thrall might have room and join them under the mahogany foot table. 

Kotori leans forward, slender hand on her heart over her trim suit. “Eli! Thank you so much for the hard work you’ve been putting into to keep the Magisterium’s public image shining!”

Eli smiles at her friend’s praise, for once the pride not feeling like a show put on for investors or constituents. “Thank you for your efforts as well. Everything in my Board is going to be more jointly offered, from now on. You’ve been doing quite a lot in the education sector, and I’m ready to see what you’ve got coming up.”

Alisa leans around her sister to speak to Kotori. “Me too, Director!” Usually reserved, her enthusiasm is finally allowed to bloom, and she looks positively dazzled. She’s so excited that Diamanté turns his shaggy head and licks Thrall from nose to ear, and Eli has to laugh.

“You have excellent ideas as well, Alisa,” says Kotori warmly, and Alisa cringes with embarrassment. “No, I mean it. I’m glad you agreed to taking on an apprenticeship with me.”

“ _Much_ better than swimming around in stew-thick politics!” says Diamanté fervently, and Abraxas nudges him with the side of a horn.

“Your sister is going to be muddling around in those very issues,” he says, and Alisa’s soul wags his tail undeterred, a dog’s shrug. Well, they’re young. Eli would rather they be flippant than sad and scared the way they’ve had to be, as a younger Ayase.

“No, I’m glad that you’re out of this system as well,” Eli says truthfully, and holds her sister’s hand. “You have always deserved much better.” Alisa hugs her for one of the first times in years, and Eli captures the moment, imprinting the feeling in her mind and sending it along to Thrall, who will channel it for her in times of struggle.

She feels so happy.

That’s not the end of it, of course. Maki and Remora pace across the room, a slumping back and forth stride, and Eli is sorry to see the haggard look in Maki’s eyes and the withdrawn slope of the panther’s shoulders. They haven’t been out in public since Rin’s funeral. Kotori, empathetic soul ablaze, follows Eli’s gaze, seizes on the problem at once and waves cheerfully with a boisterous motion. “Maki! Join us!”

Maki picks through Nico, Nozomi, Hanayo, and assorted daemons still gossiping on by the table and stands, palms flat; almost awkward, before the Ayase sisters and Kotori. Remora follows at an odd distance, reminding Eli once again that Maki easily removes herself from her soul. “How are you feeling today?” asks Alisa gently.

Maki exhales; professional in her fitted suit jacket but the lines under her scorching eyes screaming _tired, tired_. “I’m sorry. I should be much more eager on your induction day.”

“You don’t have to be anything,” Eli says firmly. “You’re allowed to feel.”

Maki mulls this over with skeptic regard, and suddenly Eli sees it: Maki has the same look as the Witch Queen, the same steel behind glass-glowing eyes and inner strength that can project confidence like spikes. Maki is going to be _something_ , and Eli has to smile helplessly at the thought.

“You know,” Maki says after a moment of the future governor’s silly half-grin, clearing her throat, “Rin would be really proud of you right now.”

Nico comes up on her other side, Ni lumbering patiently behind her. She pats Maki’s shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d have it in you to succeed like this, Eli. So good job.” Hanayo crosses the room without Viridian and takes Maki’s hand, gentle as snowfall.

A knock on the door – a third and final attendant, this one with a garter snake daemon curled around his wrist. “It’s time!” he says frantically, rushing through the gap in the door and ignoring the assorted power players of the Magisterium government. “You can’t be late to your own first address!”

Nozomi is behind the couch where Eli sits – when she stands, Nozomi is the first to bend fluid as a river into a bow, Porvenir dropping to the floor to spread his wings out. Kotori and Hanayo are only half a beat behind, with Viridian dipping his magnificent antlers to Eli and Abraxas showing off the hard curve of his horns. Maki and Alisa startle into action a moment later, and they grin at each other under the bow, showing how strange it is to bow to a best friend. Finally, cowed by peer pressure, Nico and Ni dip their heads in a quick flash of subservience that will probably never be repeated again in known history.

“Stop that, all of you,” says Eli, and Thrall puffs out his chest fur and starts to trot to the balcony where the populace waits.

“We’re just supporting you fully,” says Nozomi innocently, “with all of our hearts and souls.”

Eli figures she can take a moment to kiss her, but the attendant clears his throat, looking desperate to stay on schedule. Eli touches Nozomi on the shoulder, bolstered by the confidences of those she loves, and follows her soul to the door. Maki pulls back the curtains tired-smiling with her eyes; Alisa gets the door with a “go get ‘em, Eli!”

Eli raises her head and strides towards the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me though that grossnasty hiatus... I'm glad this finally saw the end, and I'm glad you took a moment to read.   
> Love, love, love, Silver
> 
> silversheath.tumblr.com


End file.
